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> Your passion projects are not even considered to probably the vast majority of the world; that doesn't make you a loser. Not OP but I understood this as "con

> Your passion projects are not even considered to probably the vast majority of the world; that doesn't make you a loser. Not OP but I understood this as "contributing for free to a project owned by a corporation worth more money than you could realistically spend in a lifetime is what makes you a loser".

tough 1y ago
what if that contribution benefits me personally in any way whatsoever?
- bialpio 1y ago
  You need to ask OP, I don't know what they meant, just how I personally understood it.
- LexiMax 1y ago
  That is the self-interested feeling that Open Source preys on. And I do mean "prey" with a negative connotation. One of the biggest perks of Open Source from a company's perspective is that you can get developers to work on your project for free without paying them. However, those same developers have very little say in the direction of your product, and any forking of your project would have to compete the economies of scale that come from being a company. The only downside is that you have to worry about being out-scaled by a bigger company, as the developers of ElasticSearch, Redis, Docker, and others found out first-hand. This is distinct from Free Software, which has different dynamics that are much more friendly to mutual benefit, collaboration, and forking, especially if there's no CLA that pools all of the copyright into one corporate or non-profit entity. But then again, this sort of Free Software moralizing is expressly the reason why Open Source was created as an alternative in the first place. The OSI even used to admit as such on their website: https://web.archive.org/web/20021001164015/http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.php https://web.archive.org/web/20021001164015/http://www.openso...
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- FridgeSeal 1y ago
  That’s great for you, but don’t underestimate the asymmetric value here. You’re giving them free labour, and they get _way more_ out of that than you do - especially in aggregate.
  - michaelcampbell 1y ago
    And? If I get value, I get value. If someone else gets MORE value, that doesn't diminish the value _I_ get. Viewing ones gains only through the lens of how it affects others seems like a hard way to live.

tough 1y ago

what if that contribution benefits me personally in any way whatsoever?

bialpio 1y ago
You need to ask OP, I don't know what they meant, just how I personally understood it.
LexiMax 1y ago
That is the self-interested feeling that Open Source preys on. And I do mean "prey" with a negative connotation. One of the biggest perks of Open Source from a company's perspective is that you can get developers to work on your project for free without paying them. However, those same developers have very little say in the direction of your product, and any forking of your project would have to compete the economies of scale that come from being a company. The only downside is that you have to worry about being out-scaled by a bigger company, as the developers of ElasticSearch, Redis, Docker, and others found out first-hand. This is distinct from Free Software, which has different dynamics that are much more friendly to mutual benefit, collaboration, and forking, especially if there's no CLA that pools all of the copyright into one corporate or non-profit entity. But then again, this sort of Free Software moralizing is expressly the reason why Open Source was created as an alternative in the first place. The OSI even used to admit as such on their website: https://web.archive.org/web/20021001164015/http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.php https://web.archive.org/web/20021001164015/http://www.openso...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
FridgeSeal 1y ago
That’s great for you, but don’t underestimate the asymmetric value here. You’re giving them free labour, and they get _way more_ out of that than you do - especially in aggregate.
- michaelcampbell 1y ago
  And? If I get value, I get value. If someone else gets MORE value, that doesn't diminish the value _I_ get. Viewing ones gains only through the lens of how it affects others seems like a hard way to live.