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Open source is a system of prefect logic built on the foundation of a few flawed assumptions. - Money doesn't matter - Contributors are benevolent and

Open source is a system of prefect logic built on the foundation of a few flawed assumptions. - Money doesn't matter - Contributors are benevolent and altruistic - Commercial interests can't/won't game the process - Support and security is someone else's responsibility - Building useful and viable software is a fun hobby - All software should and will eventually be Open Source

Pet_Ant 2y ago
> Building useful and viable software is a fun hobby It is! It's a lot like community theatre. A lot of people who maybe thought they'd be major movie star when they took drama in high school end up in reality working boring jobs but producing for the love the art and the dream stuff that is much better than it has any right to be. Will it ever be as good the professional stuff with large budgets? Rarely. But it is good and remarkable how far it's come.
openrisk 2y ago
You'd have to ask though, if the whole premise is so flawed, how come it has been the dramatic success it has been? There is nothing like this anywhere else in society. The only thing coming close might academic publishing (science) and this hints to what propels open source: openness, sharing knowledge is insanely productive, it creates enormous leverage to build on each others effort. Clearly so far we have not found ways to fairly attribute that benefit to make the whole phenomenon easily self-financing. But its not clear it cannot be done.
- jqpabc123 2y ago
  There is nothing like this anywhere else in society. I wonder why others don't work for free too? Even my 13 year old neighbor expects to get paid for mowing my lawn. But its not clear it cannot be done. It's not possible to prove that something can't be done.
  - openrisk 2y ago
    > I wonder why others don't work for free too? You need to explain the billions of lines of open source code. > It's not possible to prove that something can't be done. This is just sophistry. Many "business models" are being tried, granted none seems to be failproof but it suggests there is a space to explore. We are talking about a process that is barely two decades old. The familiarity and safety of paid work with fiat money, contracts, private investment and all that, its all based on inventions that came about to solve similar frictions in the past.
    - pjmlp 2y ago
      Most of it is building portfolio, or university students projects, thesis. That is how those millions came to be, outside paying jobs.
      - account42 2y ago
        Most by volume perhaps but not the projects actually being used.
        pjmlp 2y ago
        Those belong into "....outside paying jobs", given that they are powered by big corp money with strings attached.
  - ttoinou 2y ago
    coders are both artists and artisans, sometimes it’s just beautiful, sometimes it can generate money
- tartoran 2y ago
  > There is nothing like this anywhere else in society. Though they are rare, they exist. The Osho cult comes to mind , Rajneeshpuram Commune became a self-sustained community that attracted thousands of followers and they worked for free. This is related to ideology when it aligns with what people want and it is sustainable, people have no problem offering their work for free. And of course someone comes along and takes advantage of it all.
  - Vegenoid 2y ago
    But they weren't really working for free, they were working for food and housing, right?
  - GauntletWizard 2y ago
    I'm not sure you can call a group most noted for its "Role in 1984 bioterror attack" a success.
  - account42 2y ago
    The big difference is that open source is no longer an isolated community - the whole world is built on open source software. I agree though that sharing and caring is not as uncommon as some people would like to pretend. Another example of it are all kinds of online communities sharing anything from memes to cat pictures to mods to instructions how to do all kinnds of things to direct help. Some of this is drifting more and more to being monetized (see most YouTube channels) but there is still a huge amount of people sharing with others without a profit motive.
- bcdtttt 2y ago
  It's anarchism, my friend. Not the purge style anarchism, but the academic Kropotkin "Conquest of Bread" style of anarchism. And it's existed many times in human history, it just is fairly antagonistic with capitalism, so anarchism is a lot less popular these days. But it absolutely exists elsewhere in society!
- tuna74 2y ago
  I am a soccer coach for kids (my own included) in my free time. In a lot of ways it is the same as working on FOSS software. You don't get anything for it, but you get to work with other people and it is pretty fun interacting with the kids. And even if one of the kids becomes a pro you won't get any compensation for your work as well :)
- account42 2y ago
  It's not a matter of finding ways to reward people that positively contribute society, it's a matter of convincing those in power to implement them - and those people largely overlap with those benefitting from the current model.
einpoklum 2y ago
You could say that Free software is built on a different set of assumptions: - Money is not all that matters - People will write software for themselves and their friends, and will not deny it to the public out of spite/greed. Companies might, but licensing can mitigate this. - Commercial interests might game some of the process, but not its core - Support and security is my responsibilty, your responsibility, everyone's responsibility - Building useful and viable software is sometimes fun, sometimes necessary, sometimes profitable - Most software people use should and will eventually be Free - lire and gratis

Pet_Ant 2y ago

> Building useful and viable software is a fun hobby It is! It's a lot like community theatre. A lot of people who maybe thought they'd be major movie star when they took drama in high school end up in reality working boring jobs but producing for the love the art and the dream stuff that is much better than it has any right to be. Will it ever be as good the professional stuff with large budgets? Rarely. But it is good and remarkable how far it's come.

openrisk 2y ago

You'd have to ask though, if the whole premise is so flawed, how come it has been the dramatic success it has been? There is nothing like this anywhere else in society. The only thing coming close might academic publishing (science) and this hints to what propels open source: openness, sharing knowledge is insanely productive, it creates enormous leverage to build on each others effort. Clearly so far we have not found ways to fairly attribute that benefit to make the whole phenomenon easily self-financing. But its not clear it cannot be done.

jqpabc123 2y ago
There is nothing like this anywhere else in society. I wonder why others don't work for free too? Even my 13 year old neighbor expects to get paid for mowing my lawn. But its not clear it cannot be done. It's not possible to prove that something can't be done.
- openrisk 2y ago
  > I wonder why others don't work for free too? You need to explain the billions of lines of open source code. > It's not possible to prove that something can't be done. This is just sophistry. Many "business models" are being tried, granted none seems to be failproof but it suggests there is a space to explore. We are talking about a process that is barely two decades old. The familiarity and safety of paid work with fiat money, contracts, private investment and all that, its all based on inventions that came about to solve similar frictions in the past.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    Most of it is building portfolio, or university students projects, thesis. That is how those millions came to be, outside paying jobs.
    - account42 2y ago
      Most by volume perhaps but not the projects actually being used.
      - pjmlp 2y ago
        Those belong into "....outside paying jobs", given that they are powered by big corp money with strings attached.
- ttoinou 2y ago
  coders are both artists and artisans, sometimes it’s just beautiful, sometimes it can generate money
tartoran 2y ago
> There is nothing like this anywhere else in society. Though they are rare, they exist. The Osho cult comes to mind , Rajneeshpuram Commune became a self-sustained community that attracted thousands of followers and they worked for free. This is related to ideology when it aligns with what people want and it is sustainable, people have no problem offering their work for free. And of course someone comes along and takes advantage of it all.
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  But they weren't really working for free, they were working for food and housing, right?
- GauntletWizard 2y ago
  I'm not sure you can call a group most noted for its "Role in 1984 bioterror attack" a success.
- account42 2y ago
  The big difference is that open source is no longer an isolated community - the whole world is built on open source software. I agree though that sharing and caring is not as uncommon as some people would like to pretend. Another example of it are all kinds of online communities sharing anything from memes to cat pictures to mods to instructions how to do all kinnds of things to direct help. Some of this is drifting more and more to being monetized (see most YouTube channels) but there is still a huge amount of people sharing with others without a profit motive.
bcdtttt 2y ago
It's anarchism, my friend. Not the purge style anarchism, but the academic Kropotkin "Conquest of Bread" style of anarchism. And it's existed many times in human history, it just is fairly antagonistic with capitalism, so anarchism is a lot less popular these days. But it absolutely exists elsewhere in society!
tuna74 2y ago
I am a soccer coach for kids (my own included) in my free time. In a lot of ways it is the same as working on FOSS software. You don't get anything for it, but you get to work with other people and it is pretty fun interacting with the kids. And even if one of the kids becomes a pro you won't get any compensation for your work as well :)
account42 2y ago
It's not a matter of finding ways to reward people that positively contribute society, it's a matter of convincing those in power to implement them - and those people largely overlap with those benefitting from the current model.

einpoklum 2y ago

You could say that Free software is built on a different set of assumptions: - Money is not all that matters - People will write software for themselves and their friends, and will not deny it to the public out of spite/greed. Companies might, but licensing can mitigate this. - Commercial interests might game some of the process, but not its core - Support and security is my responsibilty, your responsibility, everyone's responsibility - Building useful and viable software is sometimes fun, sometimes necessary, sometimes profitable - Most software people use should and will eventually be Free - lire and gratis