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Open-source projects maintained by individual developers working for free absolutely deserve more respect than that, but ones maintained by the most profitable

Open-source projects maintained by individual developers working for free absolutely deserve more respect than that, but ones maintained by the most profitable company in the world [1] do not, especially when they go out of their way to change from doing the right thing to doing the wrong thing [2]. [1]: https://www.financecharts.com/screener/most-profitable https://www.financecharts.com/screener/most-profitable [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43484927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43484927

goku12 1y ago
> ..., especially when they go out of their way to change from doing the right thing to doing the wrong thing. And let's not forget this part. Android is a member of the mobile platform duopoly. Another similar project - Chrome - is almost a monopoly among web platforms. Both these projects exploit the open source label and most people's false belief that open source somehow equates to respect and protection of user rights. (Philosophically, it's only free software that cares about user rights. Both projects are textbook examples of non-free open source software.) This actually protects these projects to some extend from criticisms and penalties against the dark patterns that they employ to corrupt and exploit both the mobile and the web ecosystems. They absolutely don't deserve the same considerations as the passionate and underpaid small teams or individual maintainers.