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It's against this fantastic success of social norms that we should be extraordinary careful before we let market norms corrupt the ecosystem. I consider myself

by hacknat 13y ago

It's against this fantastic success of social norms that we should be extraordinary careful before we let market norms corrupt the ecosystem. I consider myself a reasonable person. This quote makes me angry. This comment seems willfully obtuse in my opinion. Not noticing the immense institutional support and money behind Rails is truly silly. I don't want to come off as mean spirited, but he is very silly for saying this. The open source projects that are popular like Linux, nginx, and other system ops stuff are obviously popular and have benefited immensely from indirect money (in terms of institutional support). They are vastly superior compared to anything a company could built closed source. We often cling to the idea that open source software is superior to closed source software, but a quick survey of the landscape of open source software will show that this is patently false. Where there is obvious demand for a software product that lots of interested parties need just to maintain operability, the open source solution will usually be vastly superior if not mildly better. But, take a look at the vast amount of software that is created on github that is open source and you will see a lot of (self-admitted) crap (I have made a lot of self-admitted crap). This crap might have the kernel of a good idea in it, but it never got the time it needed. I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. David, not all of us get to be part of incredibly profitable companies that can afford to fund our adventures in coding. Suggesting that Rails hasn't benefited from institutional support and money is just deceptive and something I can't stomach. It's something we can't measure, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

luckydude 13y ago
+1. I was going to say this but you said it better. My hackles go up when people say open source is better. That's true sometimes but it most certainly is not always true and I've argued for years that open source is usually a better (or worse) copy of some closed source thing that someone found useful and didn't like that it was closed.
- spacelizard 13y ago
  Well of course it's not true when you re-frame the argument into a strawman like that. A large percentage of proprietary programs are also blatant copies or ripoffs of something else. The issue that we're trying to get to is that free/open source software is principally better, not that all open source software is always less buggy or more featureful than the proprietary software it's intended to replace. Obviously that would be a ridiculous assumption, anyone who's seen all the crap throwaway projects on github can attest to it.
cjo 13y ago
> I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. Honest question, what about Debian? I know they had a year of FSF sponsorship back in like '94 but they seem to be heavily volunteer based with even the Project Leader keeping a day-job to pay the bills. I know they take in donations but they're generally who I point to as an example of what a Free/Open Source Software project can be. edit: '93-->'94
- hacknat 13y ago
  Fair enough, I didn't say this, but my point was more to highlight that people who take in donations are on the right side of the argument, not the wrong side. There are good open source projects that don't take "institutional" support (though who know what work is being done on company time), but they take donations. Let us praise them for doing so.
- nonchalance 13y ago
  Once an open source project has enough traction, there is generally little need for outside donations (as companies that use the product will hire people that focus on using and improving the product). The challenge is making that cross-over from hobbyist to professional project, and that is when money is helpful. Debian had funding at the right time, crossed the rubicon and now has enough momentum to continue. Not all projects share the same luxury, and I view the funding as an attempt to make projects more professional
- adestefan 13y ago
  Debian has ample bandwidth and systems donated to them to keep their build system, mirrors, and other infrastructure up and running.
dnautics 13y ago
While I agree with your general sentiment, there is also an observer bias inherent in your evidence that "open source is patently not better than closed source". There's a lot of closed source software that is crap, that, obviously, you won't see on github.
- hacknat 13y ago
  My point is that open source software is better wherever we see it. Wherever we don't see it, it probably sucks.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  I have seen closed source software where the difference between crap and not-crap (for my specific need at the time) would be <5 lines of code. If I had the source to them (+ the ability to build it without spending a week), then they'd become 'not-crap' that very day.
dhh 13y ago
I think you're forgetting that Rails was created for free, in my spare time, while I was being paid $30/hour working for 37signals and other US clients on a variety of projects. But that's even besides the point. Companies letting their employees use company time contributing to OSS has been great. As the first sentence of the article points to, I'm talking about projects raising money directly from the community.
- hacknat 13y ago
  My point is that this is, in and of itself, fundraising. Edit Also, I don't want to minimize the effort it took for you to create Rails, build momentum behind it, and get other people excited about it. What if Kickstarter, et al is just a new medium to help empower other people to do what you did?
  - adambard 13y ago
    Nobody would have contributed to an unproven web framework written in a then-obscure language. Two recent OS fundraising successes I can think of are funding for further development of Typed Clojure, and the integration/rewrite of South into Django core. Both projects were in production use when they raised the money! Imagine today, someone pitching to build a new async web framework in Livescript. "Why not Ember/Meteor/Angular!?" "Why not Javascript?!". It could be that someone comes up with a truly killer framework by utilizing Livescript's features the way DHH did with Ruby and Rails, and if they did I'd happily use it, but I wouldn't put my money on it today.
  - kordless 13y ago
    Based on his comment, my imoression is that David wrote Rails because he neeeed Rails for the job, not because a client needed Rails written for them. There's a difference between those two things.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    There are a lot of things that people are willing to do for free, but they wouldn't be willing to do it for a dollar - say, helping someone change his car tire. There is a psychological difference - if you transfer the mindset from 'helping out' to 'work for hire', then suddenly you have to pay "enough" (which will be a huge amount for many projects) or you'll get less stuff done than you'd get for free.
chrismonsanto 13y ago
> I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. OpenSSH might count, from the rant on their homepage: Please take note of our Who uses it page, which list just some of the vendors who incorporate OpenSSH into their own products -- as a critically important security / access feature -- instead of writing their own SSH implementation or purchasing one from another vendor. This list specifically includes companies like Cisco, Juniper, Apple, Red Hat, and Novell; but probably includes almost all router, switch or unix-like operating system vendors. In the 10 years since the inception of the OpenSSH project, these companies have contributed not even a dime of thanks in support of the OpenSSH project (despite numerous requests).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Permit 13y ago
  While the mentioned companies don't donate, others do. Including Mozilla/GoDaddy with $10,000 a piece.
atmosx 13y ago
Actually I think it's the other way around: Institutions benefited enormously from open source software. They saw the chance to get rid of proprietary systems and use the force of the community and they took it because it was PROFITABLE for them to do so! Why did IBM, Google, etc. Choose Linux as a platform? Out of courtesy? :-)
rubiquity 13y ago
I don't think David's grief is with software projects receiving institutional support, his issue is with software projects putting their hands out for money with the promise of something materializing. Most often the driving force behind a "successful" open source project is the sheer good will and motivation of creating something that solves people's problems. The examples you've given (Linux, Nginx) are proof of this. I can't help but wonder if this blog post would have been received better had it been written by someone not as wealthy as David.
grey-area 13y ago
I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. Rails 1.0

by hacknat 13y ago

luckydude 13y ago

+1. I was going to say this but you said it better. My hackles go up when people say open source is better. That's true sometimes but it most certainly is not always true and I've argued for years that open source is usually a better (or worse) copy of some closed source thing that someone found useful and didn't like that it was closed.

spacelizard 13y ago
Well of course it's not true when you re-frame the argument into a strawman like that. A large percentage of proprietary programs are also blatant copies or ripoffs of something else. The issue that we're trying to get to is that free/open source software is principally better, not that all open source software is always less buggy or more featureful than the proprietary software it's intended to replace. Obviously that would be a ridiculous assumption, anyone who's seen all the crap throwaway projects on github can attest to it.

cjo 13y ago

> I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. Honest question, what about Debian? I know they had a year of FSF sponsorship back in like '94 but they seem to be heavily volunteer based with even the Project Leader keeping a day-job to pay the bills. I know they take in donations but they're generally who I point to as an example of what a Free/Open Source Software project can be. edit: '93-->'94

hacknat 13y ago
Fair enough, I didn't say this, but my point was more to highlight that people who take in donations are on the right side of the argument, not the wrong side. There are good open source projects that don't take "institutional" support (though who know what work is being done on company time), but they take donations. Let us praise them for doing so.
nonchalance 13y ago
Once an open source project has enough traction, there is generally little need for outside donations (as companies that use the product will hire people that focus on using and improving the product). The challenge is making that cross-over from hobbyist to professional project, and that is when money is helpful. Debian had funding at the right time, crossed the rubicon and now has enough momentum to continue. Not all projects share the same luxury, and I view the funding as an attempt to make projects more professional
adestefan 13y ago
Debian has ample bandwidth and systems donated to them to keep their build system, mirrors, and other infrastructure up and running.

dnautics 13y ago

While I agree with your general sentiment, there is also an observer bias inherent in your evidence that "open source is patently not better than closed source". There's a lot of closed source software that is crap, that, obviously, you won't see on github.

hacknat 13y ago
My point is that open source software is better wherever we see it. Wherever we don't see it, it probably sucks.
PeterisP 13y ago
I have seen closed source software where the difference between crap and not-crap (for my specific need at the time) would be <5 lines of code. If I had the source to them (+ the ability to build it without spending a week), then they'd become 'not-crap' that very day.

dhh 13y ago

I think you're forgetting that Rails was created for free, in my spare time, while I was being paid $30/hour working for 37signals and other US clients on a variety of projects. But that's even besides the point. Companies letting their employees use company time contributing to OSS has been great. As the first sentence of the article points to, I'm talking about projects raising money directly from the community.

hacknat 13y ago
My point is that this is, in and of itself, fundraising. Edit Also, I don't want to minimize the effort it took for you to create Rails, build momentum behind it, and get other people excited about it. What if Kickstarter, et al is just a new medium to help empower other people to do what you did?
- adambard 13y ago
  Nobody would have contributed to an unproven web framework written in a then-obscure language. Two recent OS fundraising successes I can think of are funding for further development of Typed Clojure, and the integration/rewrite of South into Django core. Both projects were in production use when they raised the money! Imagine today, someone pitching to build a new async web framework in Livescript. "Why not Ember/Meteor/Angular!?" "Why not Javascript?!". It could be that someone comes up with a truly killer framework by utilizing Livescript's features the way DHH did with Ruby and Rails, and if they did I'd happily use it, but I wouldn't put my money on it today.
- kordless 13y ago
  Based on his comment, my imoression is that David wrote Rails because he neeeed Rails for the job, not because a client needed Rails written for them. There's a difference between those two things.
- PeterisP 13y ago
  There are a lot of things that people are willing to do for free, but they wouldn't be willing to do it for a dollar - say, helping someone change his car tire. There is a psychological difference - if you transfer the mindset from 'helping out' to 'work for hire', then suddenly you have to pay "enough" (which will be a huge amount for many projects) or you'll get less stuff done than you'd get for free.

chrismonsanto 13y ago

> I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. OpenSSH might count, from the rant on their homepage: Please take note of our Who uses it page, which list just some of the vendors who incorporate OpenSSH into their own products -- as a critically important security / access feature -- instead of writing their own SSH implementation or purchasing one from another vendor. This list specifically includes companies like Cisco, Juniper, Apple, Red Hat, and Novell; but probably includes almost all router, switch or unix-like operating system vendors. In the 10 years since the inception of the OpenSSH project, these companies have contributed not even a dime of thanks in support of the OpenSSH project (despite numerous requests).

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
Permit 13y ago
While the mentioned companies don't donate, others do. Including Mozilla/GoDaddy with $10,000 a piece.

atmosx 13y ago

Actually I think it's the other way around: Institutions benefited enormously from open source software. They saw the chance to get rid of proprietary systems and use the force of the community and they took it because it was PROFITABLE for them to do so! Why did IBM, Google, etc. Choose Linux as a platform? Out of courtesy? :-)

rubiquity 13y ago

I don't think David's grief is with software projects receiving institutional support, his issue is with software projects putting their hands out for money with the promise of something materializing. Most often the driving force behind a "successful" open source project is the sheer good will and motivation of creating something that solves people's problems. The examples you've given (Linux, Nginx) are proof of this. I can't help but wonder if this blog post would have been received better had it been written by someone not as wealthy as David.

grey-area 13y ago

I'd actually like someone to name an open source software project that we all know and love that hasn't benefited from immense institutional support. Rails 1.0