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> Computer users want source code like grocery store shoppers want a tractor and a plot of land. You entirely ignore ecosystem effects. Users don't want source

> Computer users want source code like grocery store shoppers want a tractor and a plot of land. You entirely ignore ecosystem effects. Users don't want source code, but they do want programs that won't betray them. Open access to source code is how such programs come about. See my other post on what happens when that access is taken away: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43385000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43385000

kube-system 2y ago
Non-experts are neither aware of this nor have no way of independently verifying that themselves. If you observe today's software marketplace, people are not switching to FOSS in response to privacy concerns. They're not even aware of what FOSS licensing is. And regardless, the issues you list in your linked comment aren't even anything FOSS has a solution for -- all of them are only partially software products. You can't replace something that is more than software, with software. At some point an IP licensing agreement just simply isn't enough can't plow a field. You need a factory, some steel, and some diesel fuel. Farmers don't plow their field with software, they do it with a tractor.
imoreno 2y ago
>but they do want programs that won't betray them Most people don't really care. In your link you mention cars locking people out, well, they still use them don't they? And they even pay huge sums of money for the privilege.
noirscape 2y ago
At the same time, FOSS software is also historically filled with corporations and slimy individuals rugpulling their users (many examples over the years, Emby jumps to mind, so does the Simple Mobile Tools set of apps). It's so common on mobile in particular that a major benefit of F-Droid[0] is that it just chooses to sit between you and the developer to make sure that the developer doesn't get up to any shenanigans. Open source/Free software isn't a panacea against that and if anything has led to the formation of a development moat, where AWS et al. can profit from FOSS, but it can do so by muscling out all profits from the smaller developers[1]. FOSS by design can't offer any legal recourse against that, which is a pretty major mark against it for most people. [0]: https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/ [1]: A less aggressive, but no less insidious version of this is the "this piece of software has a ton of extra services it relies on tech stack", where to replace one single service, you're essentially setting yourself up to rehost an entire corporate network and said hosting usually requires resources not easily accessible to individuals (ie. Multiple servers). This usually happens with organizations that want to maintain some level of control over their users; Firefox Sync for example isn't feasible to truly selfhost, since the Mozilla accounts service also needs to be selfhosted and it's a massive PITA to do that.

kube-system 2y ago

Non-experts are neither aware of this nor have no way of independently verifying that themselves. If you observe today's software marketplace, people are not switching to FOSS in response to privacy concerns. They're not even aware of what FOSS licensing is. And regardless, the issues you list in your linked comment aren't even anything FOSS has a solution for -- all of them are only partially software products. You can't replace something that is more than software, with software. At some point an IP licensing agreement just simply isn't enough can't plow a field. You need a factory, some steel, and some diesel fuel. Farmers don't plow their field with software, they do it with a tractor.

imoreno 2y ago

>but they do want programs that won't betray them Most people don't really care. In your link you mention cars locking people out, well, they still use them don't they? And they even pay huge sums of money for the privilege.

noirscape 2y ago

At the same time, FOSS software is also historically filled with corporations and slimy individuals rugpulling their users (many examples over the years, Emby jumps to mind, so does the Simple Mobile Tools set of apps). It's so common on mobile in particular that a major benefit of F-Droid[0] is that it just chooses to sit between you and the developer to make sure that the developer doesn't get up to any shenanigans. Open source/Free software isn't a panacea against that and if anything has led to the formation of a development moat, where AWS et al. can profit from FOSS, but it can do so by muscling out all profits from the smaller developers[1]. FOSS by design can't offer any legal recourse against that, which is a pretty major mark against it for most people. [0]: https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/ [1]: A less aggressive, but no less insidious version of this is the "this piece of software has a ton of extra services it relies on tech stack", where to replace one single service, you're essentially setting yourself up to rehost an entire corporate network and said hosting usually requires resources not easily accessible to individuals (ie. Multiple servers). This usually happens with organizations that want to maintain some level of control over their users; Firefox Sync for example isn't feasible to truly selfhost, since the Mozilla accounts service also needs to be selfhosted and it's a massive PITA to do that.