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The Tyranny of Open
- hardwaresofton 13y agotldr- Severely unbalanced rules and social norms govern how F/OSS software really functions, despite there not being centralized control, there are instead hidden forms of unbalance/control being exerted on it's participants. This is a pretty interesting article. I think you can see some validation of the ides in this article in different places: 'donglegate', articles (at least in recent memory) that have have been defensive in tone about wanting to make money from startups/software, etc. However, I think this article goes wrong because it doesn't consider the purest case of collaborative F/OSS software: The case where nobody meets, and everyone is anonymous - It's much harder for socio-normative forces to affect people if they are not interacting socially. [EDIT] - "harder", not "easier"
- danboarder 13y ago"However, I think this article goes wrong because it doesn't consider the purest case of collaborative F/OSS software: The case where nobody meets, and everyone is anonymous - It's much easier for socio-normative forces to affect people if they are not interacting socially." I agree, and I posted a question in the article comments asking how the author would characterize communities like Github where many users see it more as a practical resource for teamwork and access to useful libraries, etc., rather than a product of the idealism surrounding F/OSS (although they are certainly connected).