5 ms·

Has anyone else noticed a cultural shift around monetization of output? I think there wasn't as much back when I first started using open-source programs, both

• em-bee 8mo ago
  yes, and no. there is profit and there is excessive profit. if i build something to make my linux experience better and share that with the world, and a few consultancies use that to make the linux experience for their customers better, then that is fine. but if my tool becomes popular and a megacorp uses it to promote their own commercial closed source features alongside it, then that's excessive. that's one reason i like the AGPL, it reduced that. but in my opinion the ideal license is one that limits the freedom to smaller companies. maybe less than 100 or 500 employees, or less than some reasonable amount of revenue. (10 million per year? is that to high or to low?) and even for those above, i don't want revshare, just pay me something adequate.
  • dartharva 8mo ago
    Who is stopping you from licensing your code that way then?
    • crote 8mo ago
      It's not open source, because the definition of open source doesn't allow you to place any restrictions on who can use it or for what purpose. It's why licenses like "Don't use it for evil" or "Everyone except Anish Kapoor" aren't acceptable for a lot of Linux distros. In practice your best bet is probably a license where everyone can use it, but which is incredibly hostile to use in a for-profit environment. Think AGPL, where you risk being forced to open source your entire unique-selling-point proprietary software stack.
    • em-bee 8mo ago
      some people are working on that, among others there is bruce perens: https://web.archive.org/web/20251206160538/https://perens.com/2024/03/08/post-open-license-first-draft/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251206160538/https://perens.co... (sadly his site seems broken, the static files still work however: https://perens.com/static/DEVELOPMENT_LICENSE.txt https://perens.com/static/DEVELOPMENT_LICENSE.txt ) FUTO is also exploring this space: https://sourcefirst.com/ https://sourcefirst.com/
• adiabatichottub 8mo ago
  I think we've all been burned by 20+ years of exploitation in the guise of "free product." Google more or less spearheaded that movement. I agree we should all be community-minded and have nice things, but when you look at how the rewards (social and monetary) are shared it's overwhelmingly disproportionate.
• rconti 8mo ago
  Yeah, I think the paradigm has shifted. There's a perception that, while these companies have always profited off of our inputs, that we both benefitted. We contributed to a public good, they provided the platform, and profited off that platform. Now it feels like the public good is being diminished (enshittification) as they keep turning the "profit" knob, trying to squeeze more and more marginal dollars from the good. The system still requires the same inputs from us, but gives less back.
  • hn_acc1 8mo ago
    Yes, this 100x.
• logicchains 8mo ago
  Because the ratio of developers who do it for money to developers who do it for love of developing has dramatically increased, as computer science became a subject people studied for economic reasons, not just for fun.
• jltsiren 8mo ago
  MIT and BSD licenses are kind of obvious. They are academic licenses, named after universities. The idea is that you have people paid to create something of potential value, but the value of the outputs has only a limited and indirect impact on their compensation. If someone finds the outputs valuable, they should mention it in public, to let the creators use it to demonstrate the value of their work to funders and other interested parties.
• Aurornis 8mo ago
  > A short while ago, someone on Reddit pointed out that something on Google Maps was wrong and so I went and submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me. Did you respond by asking them how Reddit makes money? The anti-corporate mentality isn't new, but it does surface in different ways and communities over time. The Reddit hivemind leans very anti-corporate, albeit with a huge blind spot for corporations they actually like (Reddit itself, their chosen phone brand, the corporations that produce the shows they watch). The Reddit style rebellion is largely symbolic, with a lot of shaming and snark, but it usually stops when it would require people to alter their own behavior. That's why you got dog-piled for doing something productive on a site where user-generated content is the money maker.
  • malfist 8mo ago
    Hell, reddit hates on reddit all the time. Spez in particular is hated across the board. Agree that they largely don't change behavior. Although I will say, I've not logged into my account since the API shenanigans and don't regularly visit the site anymore. I'm mostly just on here and fark.
    • muyuu 8mo ago
      Most left leaning forums look negatively on profit motive, and reddit is largely very left wing. Whatever that means nowadays. It's reasonable to be wary of incentives, but sometimes that zeal is misplaced. Having said that, I don't think any site can go mainstream and maintain a semblance of quality discourse. If nothing else, it will become botted and infiltrated by shills. But even without that, normies will ruin it much earlier than any sophisticated attacks are necessary.
  • arjie 8mo ago
    Haha, that's funny. I didn't think of it at the time and I was more surprised than anything. By the way, I have had your comments highlighted for a while now and I've never regretted it. Good stuff.
• pjmlp 8mo ago
  It has always been like that, except we used to call it demos, sharewhare, beerware, postware,... The free beer movement came out of UNIX culture, probably influenced by how originally AT&T wasn't able to profit from it.
• crote 8mo ago
  > I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me The problem is that the big tech companies aren't holding up their end of the traditional social contract. I like to think of the wider open source community as one giant group project. Everyone contributes what they can, and in turn they can benefit from the work everyone else has done. The work you do goes towards making the world a better place. I have absolutely zero problem filing pull requests for bugs I encounter or submitting issues on OpenStreetMap, because I know that in return I get the Linux DE and reliable maps in other towns. If you want to make it political, it's a "from each according to their means, to each according to their needs". The big tech companies operate completely differently. They see open source contributors primarily as a resource to exploit. Submit a single fix on Google Maps? You'll get zero credit, they'll never stop bothering you with popups about "making improvements", design their map around what is most profitable to show, and they will of course log your location history and sell it to the highest bidder. And they are getting filthy rich off of it as well. I couldn't care less about getting monetary compensation for some odd work I do in my spare time, but there's no way in hell I'm going to do free labor for some millionaire who's going to reward me by spitting in my face.
  • ThrowawayTestr 8mo ago
    The amount of value Google Maps has given me is far beyond what I'd be willing to pay in actual dollars.
    • necovek 8mo ago
      Agreed: the opportunity to be taken to a rocky dirt road through swamp grounds on the outskirts of a small town in Greece is something I'd never get if not for Google Maps :) (and many similar stories) I only use Google Maps for their live traffic info, which they so nicely collect out of majority of Android users driving around. I'd love it if OSM apps could leverage that information for navigation too.
      • ThrowawayTestr 8mo ago
        I'm guessing that happened 8 years ago and you're still mad at it. I also have an experience where their map data was sightly wrong and I got into an argument with my mother.
• acuozzo 8mo ago
  > Has anyone else noticed a cultural shift around monetization of output? I think it's simply due to the economy being in the shitter for the non-"Capital Ownership Class". 1977-2007 was generally a good time in the US if you survived by trading your time/knowledge/expertise for a wage as most people do. This is also the time in which F/OSS came into existence. If you had a decent job during that time, then the future looked bright and you didn't think twice about giving some of your leisure time away for free.
  • Aurornis 8mo ago
    > 1977-2007 was generally a good time in the US if you survived by trading your time/knowledge/expertise for a wage as most people do. This is also the time in which F/OSS came into existence. FOSS came into existence during this time because computers and the internet became available, not because it was a specific economic situation. > If you had a decent job during that time, then the future looked bright and you didn't think twice about giving some of your leisure time away for free. This seems like rewriting history. Tech salaries today are higher than they were back then. There was even a whole lawsuit against companies caught suppressing wages during that time. Tech compensation went up significantly after the period you cited.
    • acuozzo 8mo ago
      > because computers and the internet became available Because of Bell Labs (inventors of the transistor & Unix & UUCP & so much more) which was so well-funded by the post-WW2 US economic situation. The Internet? DARPA! DARPA? Post-WW2 US M.I.C.-driven economy. The list goes on and on and on. F/OSS owes so much to The Marshall Plan. Is this a sweeping, reductionist PeterZeihan-esque argument? Sure, but I think it's valid. > This seems like rewriting history. Tech salaries today are higher than they were back then. So? Does the future look bright to you? Most of the SWEs I know wouldn't say so. How bright you think the future will be has a direct impact on your long-term planning and, for many, results in prioritizing hedonistic activities in the short term, not F/OSS.
      • nobodyandproud 8mo ago
• rurp 8mo ago
  I've never publicly scolded someone for doing free work for tech monopolies but I do understand the impulse. The problem is that it's a completely one-sided relationship, and there are perfectly legitimate concerns about how the biggest tech companies are using their wealth and power. At this point I doubt much of anyone would expect a large tech company to go out of its way to lose money in order to support human communities. They take what they can, and ruthlessly kill products and services the minute they think it helps their bottom line. Google and others don't need to rely on free volunteers, but it's certainly more profitable for them. Does Google making an extra $10B/year make the world a better place? Maybe, I don't know, but it's not crazy to think the answer is no.
  • socalgal2 8mo ago
    It not a completely one sided relationship. I'm using google maps for free!!! That's HUGE benefit to me. That google makes money from it is irrelevant to me. They're paying me by providing a free service that I get tons of usage out all the time.
    • johnisgood 8mo ago
      Yeah, and you made a fix for both yourself, and presumably other people as well. Additionally, some people submit fixes for recognition, too.
    • bluefirebrand 8mo ago
      It's not free. The cost is the information about where you are and what you're looking for basically at all time.
      • jamesnorden 8mo ago
        I hate when my navigation app knows where I am!
        • bluefirebrand 8mo ago
          Sure, your navigation app needs to know where you are in order to function Does the company that owns your navigation app have to remember every route you've ever taken forever? Does it need to do meta analysis on your location data to figure out where you likely work and life and where your friend are? Does it need to sell that data to law enforcement and businesses so they can track your movements and pattern match your behaviors? Seems to me there's a huge gulf between "location app knows where you are" and "we have used that to collect every scrap of information about your movements everywhere you go and weaponized that information against you"
• NuclearPM 8mo ago
  The MIT license didn’t require a lot of thought.
  • _zagj 8mo ago
    > The MIT license I still can't believe that developers got memed into this being the default license. 20 years ago, you'd always default to GPL and only opt for something else if it was a complete non-starter, and then you'd turn to LGPL (e.g., if it was a C library), and failing that, some BSD variant. But developers were always cautious to prefer GPL wherever they could to prevent exploitation and maximize user freedom. It's crazy that even in compiled languages like Rust, MIT is now the default, though I think that's probably due to the lack of a stable ABI complicating dynamic linking enough to make LGPL less viable.
    • Expurple 8mo ago
      > that's probably due to the lack of a stable ABI complicating dynamic linking enough to make LGPL less viable They could use MPL. It's an alternative "weak copyleft" license that's not concerned with dynamic linking
• raincole 8mo ago
  > someone on Reddit pointed out that something on Google Maps was wrong and so I went and submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me This tells you about Reddit's demographic and nothing else. Remember Reddit has a dedicated sub for antiwork. It used to have a sub for shoplifting (I'm not kidding.)
  • jasomill 8mo ago
    Reddit is…Reddit. Here's a fan sub for a nonexistent video game with 85,000 members: https://reddit.com/r/DCAllies/ https://reddit.com/r/DCAllies/ Say what you will about shoplifting, at least it's a physically realizable activity.
  • vovavili 8mo ago
    I definitively noticed a major uptick in both my well-being and an ability to hold a nuanced opinion on the world when I have stopped using reddit. The medium is the message.
• registeredcorn 8mo ago
  I would like to offer a similar, but somewhat different opinion on one aspect of what you talked about regarding "revshare": If I notice and issue on my own, and it bothers me enough / I feel that other users would benefit from it, I have no issue providing that information to the source maintainer for free. If however, I am contacted by the maintainer in anyway requesting feedback, suggestions, or input (i.e. "Rate us on the app store!", "Email us with any problems you have.", etc.) I except any feedback I provide to be worth more than an unprompted message, and in turn, I expect something like a lower bill, a discounted rate on their store front, a credit in their auth page, or some other kind of material gain from it. Basically, if I am being solicited and prompted to do something, it wasn't my idea in the firsr place, so it ought to be worth my time to do so. They have already gone to the effort of asking, so they (presumably) find value in it. I ought be compensated for that value. Using Google as an example: one of the few products of theirs I like is Opinion Rewards. They actually pay you (in store credit) for responding to their surveys. It's a fair trade off. They ask me basic habits related to shopping, etc. I get a 25 cents or so every time I respond.
• safety1st 8mo ago
  This cultural shift exists and it will intensify as long as consumer prices and cost of living continue to rise at the same time corporate profit margins do. This is a simple, easy link to make, pretty much everyone's now aware and has stopped buying the excuses. Consolidation and an increase in straight up, unpunished criminal monopoly and cartel activity within corporate America have given rise to this new culture. Luigi Mangione will not be the last of his kind.
• _zagj 8mo ago
  > submitted a fix and told them how to and I received a barrage of comments about working for free for a corporation that's making money off me After it became obvious that 1) these LLMs were trained heavily on OSS, and 2) that they (arguably) wantonly violated the licenses of the OSS they were trained on (as even the most permissive of which mandated attribution), 3) that LLMs could be used to rewrite code licensed with terms (e.g., copyleft) deemed unsuitable for certain commercial purposes to nullify those terms, and 4) that these LLMs would ultimately be used to reduce the demand for developers and suppress developer wages (even as cost of living keeps rising, and now even cost of compute, once deflationary, rises quickly as well, ironically thanks to LLMs), the culture of unbounded enthusiasm for open source amongst devs ought to have quickly been supplanted by one of peer pressure-bordering-on-public-shaming against open source participation. Yet people still go out of their way to open source projects, or work, uncompensated, on open source beyond the "good citizen" stuff of reporting bugs (possibly with fixes) in things you use. It really boggles the mind. Even if you can't starve the beast, why willingly feed it, and for free?
• seba_dos1 8mo ago
  This has nothing to do with monetization of output and everything to do with power balance. Google can take your contributions and do whatever they want with it, including banning you from using the data you contributed ever again. This doesn't happen with OpenStreetMap for example, which can be and is being monetized just fine as well, because all contributors have equal rights to the data. It's the same thing as with CLAs with copyright assignment in FLOSS.
• Yokohiii 8mo ago
  Really weird how you compare contribution to a commercial market leading company with open source licensing. How does that even make sense? If you give your knowledge or workforce away for free, do it. Google will not notice you in any case.