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That's like saying it's a bad idea to contribute to Open Source. It's a similar motivation: people want to do good in the world and don't necessarily need to be

That's like saying it's a bad idea to contribute to Open Source. It's a similar motivation: people want to do good in the world and don't necessarily need to be paid for it.

shiroiushi 2y ago
I think I see his point though, and it's not quite the same as working on FOSS. He made a sibling comment about helping a "multi-billion dollar" corporation (CloudFlare) for so little reward. So in his view, this volunteer effort didn't really help regular people that much, and instead benefited a huge company mostly. People usually work on FOSS because they have a personal interest in a project, and want to share that with everyone. So we end up with stuff like device drivers for hardware where the mfgr couldn't be bothered to make a Linux driver, or various useful utilities, a whole OS (which everyone can use), etc. What we don't see much in FOSS is "enterprise software": stuff that's only really useful if you're a huge company. Where's the FOSS alternatives to proprietary human resource management systems, supply chain management systems, etc.? Generally, stuff like that doesn't exist, because no one wants to spend their free time working on things that they personally have no use for, and no one's found a good business case to make a company producing an open-source version.
- fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
  Taking out patents is like FOSS, though, in that the effect is that, once the patent is gone, anyone can work in that area without worrying about infringing that patent. So, even if the occasion might be a threat to a multi-billion dollar company, this is a case where helping such companies is well-aligned with the needs of the FOSS movement.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    >once the patent is gone, anyone can work in that area without worrying about infringing that patent. I agree, and that's a great point I think the patent examiner person was missing. These patents are a hazard for everyone, big or small.

That's like saying it's a bad idea to contribute to Open Source. It's a similar motivation: people want to do good in the world and don't necessarily need to be paid for it.

shiroiushi 2y ago

I think I see his point though, and it's not quite the same as working on FOSS. He made a sibling comment about helping a "multi-billion dollar" corporation (CloudFlare) for so little reward. So in his view, this volunteer effort didn't really help regular people that much, and instead benefited a huge company mostly. People usually work on FOSS because they have a personal interest in a project, and want to share that with everyone. So we end up with stuff like device drivers for hardware where the mfgr couldn't be bothered to make a Linux driver, or various useful utilities, a whole OS (which everyone can use), etc. What we don't see much in FOSS is "enterprise software": stuff that's only really useful if you're a huge company. Where's the FOSS alternatives to proprietary human resource management systems, supply chain management systems, etc.? Generally, stuff like that doesn't exist, because no one wants to spend their free time working on things that they personally have no use for, and no one's found a good business case to make a company producing an open-source version.

fiddlerwoaroof 2y ago
Taking out patents is like FOSS, though, in that the effect is that, once the patent is gone, anyone can work in that area without worrying about infringing that patent. So, even if the occasion might be a threat to a multi-billion dollar company, this is a case where helping such companies is well-aligned with the needs of the FOSS movement.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  >once the patent is gone, anyone can work in that area without worrying about infringing that patent. I agree, and that's a great point I think the patent examiner person was missing. These patents are a hazard for everyone, big or small.