3 ms·

Part of the purpose of my post was to paint a realistic picture of this process. I suspect much of what I ran into isn't an aberration. Creating a tarball and

Part of the purpose of my post was to paint a realistic picture of this process. I suspect much of what I ran into isn't an aberration. Creating a tarball and distributing it is a gross oversimplification of the process in many cases. And there's massive liability exposure in doing so. So, the question then becomes how much more do I owe society? Am I obligated to spend 40 hours to clean up the code? Should I pay for a personal E&O policy on the off-chance I'm infringing on IP or unwittingly using someone's patented work? Should I continue running the corporation just to protect my personal interests? And even if we managed to come to some agreement on all that, is it really the best way I could contribute to society? Would that 40 hours be better spent volunteering at a soup kitchen? Maybe spending the time programming for some non-profit that needs help? The question seems simple at face value. The reasons for open sourcing dead software sound fantastic in an idealistic society. But the reality is far more complicated than the question suggests. And I don't think it's entirely fair to expect or demand this of people.

pnathan 12y ago
Those are really quite fair questions in reality: I'm arguing from principle, but I don't think your complaints are unreasonable. Reality exists, after all. :-) Let me pose a hypothetical example - Suppose your company produced the World's Shiniest Algorithm (WSA), allowing our total software energy use to drop below 10% of what it currently does. And, then, because your company is led by a scientist who can not run a business, it completely implodes. The WSA is now out to lunch. What is the moral duty relating to the WSA? Should it have been published/open sourced? On the flip side, what of the company with the World's Worst Algorithm, allowing your fine company to rank size of navel lint. This also implodes (for obvious reasons). What is the moral duty relating to the WWA? Should it have been published/open sourced? My perspective is largely informed by seeing a lot of published papers referencing really awesome software long ago that essentially went into the garbage can due to commercial reasons. I don't think that it was a net win for society that that happened.
- nirvdrum 12y ago
  These are interesting points and my response wasn't intended to slap you down, as it were. I just see the question posed every time someone announces a shutdown here. And I don't think it's a bad question to ask, but it is quite loaded. I set out to explain why. To your example, if someone tells you exactly how something was built, but didn't give you the source for the embodiment, that seems like a fine societal contribution to me. But, I'd probably argue that if it were truly that valuable to society, society probably should have found a way to support it, too. As long as the argument is no one owes a founder anything (which I can agree with), then the founder shouldn't owe anyone anything as a matter of fairness.
- throwawayaway 12y ago
  You seem to think that society deserves to be treated with benevolence, and responds well to it. As a member of society, I have learned that if something is actually all that great, it will eventually become open source or be replaced by open source. Jeff Atwood had an article about this a long long time ago. Society learns also from being punished. If people did not give away their work for free, society would learn more quickly that you have to pay people to work. Then society could benefit 1) from paying people to work 2) from having a claim on the work they produce. They aren't going to learn if people keep bending over.

pnathan 12y ago

Those are really quite fair questions in reality: I'm arguing from principle, but I don't think your complaints are unreasonable. Reality exists, after all. :-) Let me pose a hypothetical example - Suppose your company produced the World's Shiniest Algorithm (WSA), allowing our total software energy use to drop below 10% of what it currently does. And, then, because your company is led by a scientist who can not run a business, it completely implodes. The WSA is now out to lunch. What is the moral duty relating to the WSA? Should it have been published/open sourced? On the flip side, what of the company with the World's Worst Algorithm, allowing your fine company to rank size of navel lint. This also implodes (for obvious reasons). What is the moral duty relating to the WWA? Should it have been published/open sourced? My perspective is largely informed by seeing a lot of published papers referencing really awesome software long ago that essentially went into the garbage can due to commercial reasons. I don't think that it was a net win for society that that happened.

nirvdrum 12y ago
These are interesting points and my response wasn't intended to slap you down, as it were. I just see the question posed every time someone announces a shutdown here. And I don't think it's a bad question to ask, but it is quite loaded. I set out to explain why. To your example, if someone tells you exactly how something was built, but didn't give you the source for the embodiment, that seems like a fine societal contribution to me. But, I'd probably argue that if it were truly that valuable to society, society probably should have found a way to support it, too. As long as the argument is no one owes a founder anything (which I can agree with), then the founder shouldn't owe anyone anything as a matter of fairness.
throwawayaway 12y ago
You seem to think that society deserves to be treated with benevolence, and responds well to it. As a member of society, I have learned that if something is actually all that great, it will eventually become open source or be replaced by open source. Jeff Atwood had an article about this a long long time ago. Society learns also from being punished. If people did not give away their work for free, society would learn more quickly that you have to pay people to work. Then society could benefit 1) from paying people to work 2) from having a claim on the work they produce. They aren't going to learn if people keep bending over.