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Let's not expand the term open source to automatically mean community driven development or free software. Neither need apply for a project to be open source.

Let's not expand the term open source to automatically mean community driven development or free software. Neither need apply for a project to be open source. > its existence is to serve Google's whims Ah, yeah... the existence of every major project is to satisfy the companies paying for the development. Linux has been over 80% corporate commits every year since 2003. Blender is funded by 35 corporations. Not one open source project larger than a library has gotten anywhere major without corporate sponsorship.

NegativeLatency 2y ago
> Linux has been over 80% corporate commits every year since 2003 There's a big difference between all/most of the interest coming from a large company, compared to the numerous organizations that work together to make Linux what it is.
bitsandboots 2y ago
I'd love to expand the term actually, because it's been misused to come to mean that something is community oriented, collaborative, even benevolent. Not even open source, but just the word "open". OpenAI for one. It's been abused for public image. You're example of Linux is a bad one. Its contributions are corporate, but they are collaborative. With Android, Google dictates and others follow. Linux is not this way.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  I don't really buy that. Samsung tears most of the UI layer off Android and installs their own look and feel. Google does the same with Pixel, Huawei does with their phones, and so on. You have to follow some of Google's rules to get Play Services, but Android varies immensely depending on vendor. Ditto for things like background tasks and battery life management. The same applies to Linux. The kernel changes significantly on vendor as well, with changes making it upstream only if the famously tribal Linux maintainers find it interesting. I am sure that the same applies for code from Samsung or Qualcomm to the Android codebase.
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  - NotPractical 2y ago
    Those are very minor changes and almost everything besides superfluous things like the UI design are the same.
crapple8430 2y ago
I do think that Android is bad-faith open source too, but not in that sense. It's bad faith open source because only AOSP is actually open source, and AOSP by itself is not that useful of an operating system. There are a lot of proprietary components required for a functioning Android phone, usually known as Google apps, which are not open source. Android as a system is better described as open core, not open source. There are even mechanisms to prevent you from using your own fork, such as the various "integrity" APIs.
- ChadNauseam 2y ago
  The integrity APIs are horrible. Why can you not send RCS messages from a rooted phone or use the ChatGPT app?
- DannyBee 2y ago
  " It's bad faith open source because only AOSP is actually open source, and AOSP by itself is not that useful of an operating system. " So it's bad faith because they didn't open source as much as you wanted, and you want parts that aren't open source because you don't find it useful enough. Have you considered that maybe this is not a great bar? Your claim of bad faith is based on what you want, and not based on how any of the people involved actually operated. Perhaps you should not claim bad faith without evidence the people involved actually operated in bad faith. Thankless people for whom somebody's particular open source project is not enough and feel like they are entitled to more are one of the worst things about open source as an ecosystem overall. On top of that, i'm very curious to understand what exactly you think would be the state of the world had AOSP not been released. (Also, as an aside, open core did not exist at the time AOSP was released)
  - SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
    I mean, parent does point out that we have another term that's probably less misleading (open-core), and there does have to be _some_ point at which a project can no longer call itself Open-Source and be taken seriously or in good faith. If a project Open-Sources one 20-line header file in a 6M LOC project, calling it Open-Source would be a straight up lie. I think something like "Is it actually reasonably possible to build something usable from the parts that are Open-Source?" Is not a bad line in the sand, though it's not a very clean one. You can quibble about it generally, or talk about case-by-case specifics, but your outrage seems a bit out of proportion, it's a reasonable position to take.
bayindirh 2y ago
> Not one open source project larger than a library has gotten anywhere major without corporate sponsorship. Let's think on this statement a little. From top of my head: - VLC - Darktable - rsync - KDE as in the Desktop Environment - Clementine Music Player - MusicBrainz Picard - GIMP - Zotero - GNU Octave - Kid3 - KMail - etc, etc...
- izacus 2y ago
  Those projects all heavily rely on libraries developed via corporate paycheck.
  - bayindirh 2y ago
    Let's not move the goalposts. The original claim was "if there's no corporate sponsorship, you can't have apps". These apps are not sponsored by corporations directly. Also, your point is untenable. The moment someone patches something while being employed by a company, that thing becomes "developed via corporate paycheck". This also makes the small tools developed by oneself "developed via corporate paycheck", because while the person was at home, and it was 2AM, They also had a job paying their bills somehow.
dingnuts 2y ago
> Not one open source project larger than a library has gotten anywhere major without corporate sponsorship. Bold statement. Who is the corporate sponsor of Emacs?
NotPractical 2y ago
They weren't expanding any terms in the parent comment. "Android" (AOSP) is open source, but it's not good-faith open source.

NegativeLatency 2y ago

> Linux has been over 80% corporate commits every year since 2003 There's a big difference between all/most of the interest coming from a large company, compared to the numerous organizations that work together to make Linux what it is.

bitsandboots 2y ago

I'd love to expand the term actually, because it's been misused to come to mean that something is community oriented, collaborative, even benevolent. Not even open source, but just the word "open". OpenAI for one. It's been abused for public image. You're example of Linux is a bad one. Its contributions are corporate, but they are collaborative. With Android, Google dictates and others follow. Linux is not this way.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
I don't really buy that. Samsung tears most of the UI layer off Android and installs their own look and feel. Google does the same with Pixel, Huawei does with their phones, and so on. You have to follow some of Google's rules to get Play Services, but Android varies immensely depending on vendor. Ditto for things like background tasks and battery life management. The same applies to Linux. The kernel changes significantly on vendor as well, with changes making it upstream only if the famously tribal Linux maintainers find it interesting. I am sure that the same applies for code from Samsung or Qualcomm to the Android codebase.
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- NotPractical 2y ago
  Those are very minor changes and almost everything besides superfluous things like the UI design are the same.

crapple8430 2y ago

I do think that Android is bad-faith open source too, but not in that sense. It's bad faith open source because only AOSP is actually open source, and AOSP by itself is not that useful of an operating system. There are a lot of proprietary components required for a functioning Android phone, usually known as Google apps, which are not open source. Android as a system is better described as open core, not open source. There are even mechanisms to prevent you from using your own fork, such as the various "integrity" APIs.

ChadNauseam 2y ago
The integrity APIs are horrible. Why can you not send RCS messages from a rooted phone or use the ChatGPT app?
DannyBee 2y ago
" It's bad faith open source because only AOSP is actually open source, and AOSP by itself is not that useful of an operating system. " So it's bad faith because they didn't open source as much as you wanted, and you want parts that aren't open source because you don't find it useful enough. Have you considered that maybe this is not a great bar? Your claim of bad faith is based on what you want, and not based on how any of the people involved actually operated. Perhaps you should not claim bad faith without evidence the people involved actually operated in bad faith. Thankless people for whom somebody's particular open source project is not enough and feel like they are entitled to more are one of the worst things about open source as an ecosystem overall. On top of that, i'm very curious to understand what exactly you think would be the state of the world had AOSP not been released. (Also, as an aside, open core did not exist at the time AOSP was released)
- SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
  I mean, parent does point out that we have another term that's probably less misleading (open-core), and there does have to be _some_ point at which a project can no longer call itself Open-Source and be taken seriously or in good faith. If a project Open-Sources one 20-line header file in a 6M LOC project, calling it Open-Source would be a straight up lie. I think something like "Is it actually reasonably possible to build something usable from the parts that are Open-Source?" Is not a bad line in the sand, though it's not a very clean one. You can quibble about it generally, or talk about case-by-case specifics, but your outrage seems a bit out of proportion, it's a reasonable position to take.

bayindirh 2y ago

> Not one open source project larger than a library has gotten anywhere major without corporate sponsorship. Let's think on this statement a little. From top of my head: - VLC - Darktable - rsync - KDE as in the Desktop Environment - Clementine Music Player - MusicBrainz Picard - GIMP - Zotero - GNU Octave - Kid3 - KMail - etc, etc...

izacus 2y ago
Those projects all heavily rely on libraries developed via corporate paycheck.
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Let's not move the goalposts. The original claim was "if there's no corporate sponsorship, you can't have apps". These apps are not sponsored by corporations directly. Also, your point is untenable. The moment someone patches something while being employed by a company, that thing becomes "developed via corporate paycheck". This also makes the small tools developed by oneself "developed via corporate paycheck", because while the person was at home, and it was 2AM, They also had a job paying their bills somehow.

dingnuts 2y ago

> Not one open source project larger than a library has gotten anywhere major without corporate sponsorship. Bold statement. Who is the corporate sponsor of Emacs?

NotPractical 2y ago

They weren't expanding any terms in the parent comment. "Android" (AOSP) is open source, but it's not good-faith open source.