4 ms·

Linux is younger than I am. GNU is two years older than I am. Anyone making smart statements about the long-term prospects of a spontaneously organizing tidal

Linux is younger than I am. GNU is two years older than I am. Anyone making smart statements about the long-term prospects of a spontaneously organizing tidal wave erupting from a vacuum needs to take a step back, stop talking, and find something worth working on to them personally. Web is mostly a distraction for proponents of FOSS. Web developers consume the foundation of FOSS and, without moving past web development, cannot contribute to that foundation. I don't honestly look to domination of web software components as a source of open source growth or an indicator of open source health. Web developers are users and FOSS is powered by developers. Put more stock in Valve and Crytek's long-term influence on developers using Linux to game on. They subsequently can learn to program Linux, and that's way more influential than 99% of the garbage out there about web being some egalitarian magic kingdom where open source and individuals can thrive, so there. Gaming is one of the last great bastions of totally proprietary software platforms where users with the natural propensity to do so do not eventually become developers.

woah 13y ago
Most web developers are not writing servers or browsers in C, but within the web ecosystem open source is really the only choice (to build with). There could be more people open sourcing their whole startups, but in terms of building blocks, open source reigns supreme in the world of web. I mean, look at the HN frontpage on any given day. A good half of the posts will be about some new open source module or framework that someone has put hundreds of hours into. Closed frameworks are regularly scoffed at and treated with great suspicion. In the Node community, it is a common practice to open-source modules without giving it a second thought, just part of a day's work. I'm not sure I really understand your point, could you explain?
- knappador 13y ago
  The behavior in the node community as you have described can be taken as an example of just how community-minded FOSS developers naturally become, and not necessarily even slightly out of some sense of geek-altruism. The choice to support the FOSS community or more closed-source development is as clear-cut to developers as choosing between a lush rain forest or bio-domes scattered throughout the desert. Imagine a world where every developer learns to program using open source tools and has participated in one open source community prior to college or on-the-job training. Does any individual developer choose to use closed source and become embedded in a bio-dome where their capability to survive is permanently bound to the decisions of the bubble around them? Does any manager of developers expect to be able to direct developers to do this? Does any executive expect to retain even part of their personnel by telling them to willfully extract themselves from the rich ecosystem in which such demands cannot be made of them? Let's take OpenGL vs Direct X for example. MS says, "Learn Direct X or else your games are doomed to only use 50% of the display's luminosity range!" This is obviously crap, and MS will make tons of moves specifically to implement their software as a yoke upon developers captured by their tool-chain treadmill. You like Active X. You really do, and because you've learned to use it, now you will have a little sign on your website that tells people that IE is required to use your government service. You will specify it in job ads. You will recommend it as a developer, a manager, an executive, a South Korean politician. Your investment will chain you, your users, perhaps your entire country to tribute payments. Oh, the company can make money. So can the developers, and there is no union necessary because there are no scabs, no hard manufacturing assets, or any other reason other than entrenched, slowly eroding fiefdoms that can convince developers to choose the bio-dome over the rain forest. Corporate, closed-source software development is in a quite precarious arrangement compared to manufacturing and amorphous labor. This is true, even withstanding the still-entrenched gorillas like Apple, MS, Oracle, Google, etc etc etc. The point of this is that if everyone develops with FOSS first, get ready to see major hemorrhaging of anachronistic bio-domes until their glass is shattered and the ecosystem thrives straight through them. This is bigger than web. Imagine how many wasted resources will be recovered and how productive new companies can be. This is a quite attractive future depending on who you are. Web can't take us there. Web is not the thing that breaks down all walls. Mozilla can try and try and try. Web is always going to be waiting on standards while other programmers just do, no call for comments required. The other thing I'm getting at is that web is not a primary indicator of the growth of FOSS because not everyone who uses web has access to the tools that can be used to create web. Web is more Gutenberg Bible than printing press. You need access to the press to become more than just a consumer of the fruit. In the sense that drawing nascent developers, before they even think of programming, into the FOSS community, forever freeing them from the illusion that rowing the monopolist corporate bireme is a necessary part of life, what Valve and Crytek are doing by improving their strategic relationship with FOSS might as well be the invention of artillery in a land of castles. Linux as a gaming platform fuels a new wave of Linux users with a strong propensity to find joy in programming, the users most likely to become developers. What's going on in gaming on Linux is what leads humanity to a FOSSier world. Valve is one of the rare companies that is in position to push this change and benefit if this change becomes reality.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - woah 13y ago
    Yea, I haven't played a game for like more than 30 minutes in the past 15 years (since I was 12 or so), but I am very excited about what Valve is doing.
malkia 13y ago
Valve recently open sourced vogl, voglperf and togl - https://github.com/ValveSoftware https://github.com/ValveSoftware CryTek are going ahead to open source RenderDoc - https://twitter.com/RenderDoc https://twitter.com/RenderDoc and Sony just released an awesome .NET/WPF framework (used for a lot of tools in some of Sony's internal studios) - https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF
Shorel 13y ago
Zoroastrianism is about 2500 older than me, it surely should be thriving! Honestly I don't see what your first paragraph adds to the discussion besides being an argument of authority of your own opinion being more valid than of anyone younger than you. About the rest, I can not see how having an end-to-end full open source ecosystem is a worthwhile goal. Open source developers have shown a great propensity towards politics and petty conflicts of personality. I believe the basic stack of our computing lives should be open source, to have a level playing field where all competitors and collaborators can gain users based on merit. But software applications should be able to be closed source if the users wants them. Gaming can stay closed source if that creates better games, as a game is almost never a library or an API that can influence other software. And specially: because experience and practicality have shown that closed source games are better. I want to enjoy the best software possible. In the case of games, I want the best games possible. I don't care if they are closed source. In fact, it's better if they are not, as this will help prevent multiplayer cheating. I want Valve doing Linux games because that will motivate someone in the future to create some kernel innovation, but I want Valve doing Linux games also because I want good games in my favourite open platform, instead of the crap tux games showcased as better in some way just because they are open source.

woah 13y ago

Most web developers are not writing servers or browsers in C, but within the web ecosystem open source is really the only choice (to build with). There could be more people open sourcing their whole startups, but in terms of building blocks, open source reigns supreme in the world of web. I mean, look at the HN frontpage on any given day. A good half of the posts will be about some new open source module or framework that someone has put hundreds of hours into. Closed frameworks are regularly scoffed at and treated with great suspicion. In the Node community, it is a common practice to open-source modules without giving it a second thought, just part of a day's work. I'm not sure I really understand your point, could you explain?

knappador 13y ago
The behavior in the node community as you have described can be taken as an example of just how community-minded FOSS developers naturally become, and not necessarily even slightly out of some sense of geek-altruism. The choice to support the FOSS community or more closed-source development is as clear-cut to developers as choosing between a lush rain forest or bio-domes scattered throughout the desert. Imagine a world where every developer learns to program using open source tools and has participated in one open source community prior to college or on-the-job training. Does any individual developer choose to use closed source and become embedded in a bio-dome where their capability to survive is permanently bound to the decisions of the bubble around them? Does any manager of developers expect to be able to direct developers to do this? Does any executive expect to retain even part of their personnel by telling them to willfully extract themselves from the rich ecosystem in which such demands cannot be made of them? Let's take OpenGL vs Direct X for example. MS says, "Learn Direct X or else your games are doomed to only use 50% of the display's luminosity range!" This is obviously crap, and MS will make tons of moves specifically to implement their software as a yoke upon developers captured by their tool-chain treadmill. You like Active X. You really do, and because you've learned to use it, now you will have a little sign on your website that tells people that IE is required to use your government service. You will specify it in job ads. You will recommend it as a developer, a manager, an executive, a South Korean politician. Your investment will chain you, your users, perhaps your entire country to tribute payments. Oh, the company can make money. So can the developers, and there is no union necessary because there are no scabs, no hard manufacturing assets, or any other reason other than entrenched, slowly eroding fiefdoms that can convince developers to choose the bio-dome over the rain forest. Corporate, closed-source software development is in a quite precarious arrangement compared to manufacturing and amorphous labor. This is true, even withstanding the still-entrenched gorillas like Apple, MS, Oracle, Google, etc etc etc. The point of this is that if everyone develops with FOSS first, get ready to see major hemorrhaging of anachronistic bio-domes until their glass is shattered and the ecosystem thrives straight through them. This is bigger than web. Imagine how many wasted resources will be recovered and how productive new companies can be. This is a quite attractive future depending on who you are. Web can't take us there. Web is not the thing that breaks down all walls. Mozilla can try and try and try. Web is always going to be waiting on standards while other programmers just do, no call for comments required. The other thing I'm getting at is that web is not a primary indicator of the growth of FOSS because not everyone who uses web has access to the tools that can be used to create web. Web is more Gutenberg Bible than printing press. You need access to the press to become more than just a consumer of the fruit. In the sense that drawing nascent developers, before they even think of programming, into the FOSS community, forever freeing them from the illusion that rowing the monopolist corporate bireme is a necessary part of life, what Valve and Crytek are doing by improving their strategic relationship with FOSS might as well be the invention of artillery in a land of castles. Linux as a gaming platform fuels a new wave of Linux users with a strong propensity to find joy in programming, the users most likely to become developers. What's going on in gaming on Linux is what leads humanity to a FOSSier world. Valve is one of the rare companies that is in position to push this change and benefit if this change becomes reality.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- woah 13y ago
  Yea, I haven't played a game for like more than 30 minutes in the past 15 years (since I was 12 or so), but I am very excited about what Valve is doing.

malkia 13y ago

Valve recently open sourced vogl, voglperf and togl - https://github.com/ValveSoftware https://github.com/ValveSoftware CryTek are going ahead to open source RenderDoc - https://twitter.com/RenderDoc https://twitter.com/RenderDoc and Sony just released an awesome .NET/WPF framework (used for a lot of tools in some of Sony's internal studios) - https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF https://github.com/SonyWWS/ATF

Shorel 13y ago

Zoroastrianism is about 2500 older than me, it surely should be thriving! Honestly I don't see what your first paragraph adds to the discussion besides being an argument of authority of your own opinion being more valid than of anyone younger than you. About the rest, I can not see how having an end-to-end full open source ecosystem is a worthwhile goal. Open source developers have shown a great propensity towards politics and petty conflicts of personality. I believe the basic stack of our computing lives should be open source, to have a level playing field where all competitors and collaborators can gain users based on merit. But software applications should be able to be closed source if the users wants them. Gaming can stay closed source if that creates better games, as a game is almost never a library or an API that can influence other software. And specially: because experience and practicality have shown that closed source games are better. I want to enjoy the best software possible. In the case of games, I want the best games possible. I don't care if they are closed source. In fact, it's better if they are not, as this will help prevent multiplayer cheating. I want Valve doing Linux games because that will motivate someone in the future to create some kernel innovation, but I want Valve doing Linux games also because I want good games in my favourite open platform, instead of the crap tux games showcased as better in some way just because they are open source.