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Eitherway, it will be difficult for some lonely, hard working programmer to release some code and attract contributors or make money out of it. This debate is

by jokoon 11y ago

Eitherway, it will be difficult for some lonely, hard working programmer to release some code and attract contributors or make money out of it. This debate is just about politics of business and project management regarding the law, nothing more really. I don't like this debate, because its political nature does not have so much importance nor relevance. If you don't make money thanks to a project, you still need some time to work on it, and if it doesn't bring you money, how can conciliate this project and a paying job ? Unless your company understands open source and agrees to attract contributors, but what if you can't find any ? There are not so many programmers like Linus Torvalds out there who can really make it like he did. He is the best example open source has, but I think citing linux over and over to praise the open source model is really dishonest. Writing decent quality, open source software is really hard in term of management and business. There is not a lot of money to make in open source, or else it's pretty difficult to find a way to monetize it. You must be talented, find a network, and still find a source of income. It's pretty much like research. If you have time and food, go for it, but nothing will build a project better and faster than investors full of cash and NDAs. Nobody cares about open source or free software. Everyone just want to work in the industry, have a career, some colleagues, and not get screwed by lawyers. Open source will drive away lawyers, but it might also drive away cash. Not everybody can just code at home, without any income or on welfare, and just hope to become like carmack or torvalds. It's true that computer software is spoiled by money, but it's not specific to software.

oldmanjay 11y ago
> Nobody cares about open source or free software. Everyone just want to work in the industry, have a career, some colleagues, and not get screwed by lawyers. Open source will drive away lawyers, but it might also drive away cash. Not everybody can just code at home, without any income or on welfare, and just hope to become like carmack or torvalds. This paragraph is utterly incorrect in a way I find almost senseless. It's almost like trolls from the 90s wrote it for you. I mean that in a technical sense, I'm not trying to disparage you. It's just a point of view I haven't seen espoused in over a decade. Edit: quoting against edits
- capkutay 11y ago
  How is it incorrect exactly?
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    The thriving open source community that has been in existence for the last two decades, run and supported by (mostly) otherwise employed engineers, and used in countless business support areas worldwide, is the most amazingly obvious evidence against it. It is so large an elephant in that paragraph's room that I'm not sure how anyone could miss it.
    - jokoon 11y ago
      That's not the point I was making. I was making the point that open source is not a competitive way to do business, it's essentially giving away to other programmers of other companies, and it's fine if everyone is making money, but it's not always the case. Investors will want to own something like patents or source code. I'm not saying it's not impossible, I'm just saying it's only viable in a minority of cases, because capitalism and business management works that way, even if I don't like it for other reasons (patent trolls). What bothers me the most, is that open source or free software is not a proper way to employ people and build businesses. Writing software requires time and efforts. You're giving the example of employed engineers, but what about the rest ? Engineers are a minority of programmers, they're employed, what about the unemployed who want to make something? Just contribute some patches and hope for an interview ? Sitting in front of a computer for hours won't land you food if you're not paid for it. You talk about community, but honestly I don't really cares about the community. I care about technological progress, competitiveness, and people able to have a career in the industry. A community can be pretty exclusive.
- anon1385 11y ago
  It's not totally wrong though is it. For the most part selling shrink-wrapped software is dead (compared to the 90s), because end users expect native software to be free (in both senses, although the beer sense is probably the more important). The only real exception is B2B software and games. It's why the vast majority of developers younger than about 30 are either working on internal corporate software or on SaaS web apps. Nobody will graduate from university with a CS degree in 2015 thinking that they will sell software directly to people. Those graduates will dream of creating or working for a web service supported by ads or subscriptions. It won't be any more 'free', in fact it will probably be much worse than the shrink-wrapped proprietary software of the 90s (your data controlled by a 3rd party server, tracking for ads, no ability to stick with old versions, software stops working when the server goes down etc). But despite that it feels more morally acceptable to people to work on SaaS, and I think the way freedom is framed by the GPL is a big part of that. People who work at Facebook or AirBnB or Twitter or Google don't view themselves as evil merchants of proprietary software. They see themselves as socially aware employees of modern companies who 'get it' and support open source and free software - look how much open source code facebook and google gift to the world! The marketing push towards open source was a mind blowing runaway success. It killed the most profitable industry ever seen in human history and replaced it with an even more profitable subscription service where a non trivial amount of the work is done for free by volunteers. This hasn't impacted developer employment because the overall industry has grown due to the huge number of SaaS companies springing up every day. It remains to be seen if that's sustainable. (There's enough profitable B2B SaaS subscriptions based companies to mean it probably is, overall, but the ad supported consumer sector is a bit scary, at least from an outside perspective).
loup-vaillant 11y ago
We don't hear much about them, but most software is actually custom software. Only a tiny fraction of software enjoys wide distribution. Operating systems and Web browsers for instance are a minuscule niche, in terms of development effort. They just have a disproportionate impact. Writing decent quality Free Software is easy: write custom software. Just give them the source code, and assign copyright to them. Or, give them a GPL (or BSD) licensed copy. Depending on the specifics, the software may not be free for you. But it will be free for its sole user, which is what matters.

by jokoon 11y ago

oldmanjay 11y ago

> Nobody cares about open source or free software. Everyone just want to work in the industry, have a career, some colleagues, and not get screwed by lawyers. Open source will drive away lawyers, but it might also drive away cash. Not everybody can just code at home, without any income or on welfare, and just hope to become like carmack or torvalds. This paragraph is utterly incorrect in a way I find almost senseless. It's almost like trolls from the 90s wrote it for you. I mean that in a technical sense, I'm not trying to disparage you. It's just a point of view I haven't seen espoused in over a decade. Edit: quoting against edits

capkutay 11y ago
How is it incorrect exactly?
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  The thriving open source community that has been in existence for the last two decades, run and supported by (mostly) otherwise employed engineers, and used in countless business support areas worldwide, is the most amazingly obvious evidence against it. It is so large an elephant in that paragraph's room that I'm not sure how anyone could miss it.
  - jokoon 11y ago
    That's not the point I was making. I was making the point that open source is not a competitive way to do business, it's essentially giving away to other programmers of other companies, and it's fine if everyone is making money, but it's not always the case. Investors will want to own something like patents or source code. I'm not saying it's not impossible, I'm just saying it's only viable in a minority of cases, because capitalism and business management works that way, even if I don't like it for other reasons (patent trolls). What bothers me the most, is that open source or free software is not a proper way to employ people and build businesses. Writing software requires time and efforts. You're giving the example of employed engineers, but what about the rest ? Engineers are a minority of programmers, they're employed, what about the unemployed who want to make something? Just contribute some patches and hope for an interview ? Sitting in front of a computer for hours won't land you food if you're not paid for it. You talk about community, but honestly I don't really cares about the community. I care about technological progress, competitiveness, and people able to have a career in the industry. A community can be pretty exclusive.
anon1385 11y ago
It's not totally wrong though is it. For the most part selling shrink-wrapped software is dead (compared to the 90s), because end users expect native software to be free (in both senses, although the beer sense is probably the more important). The only real exception is B2B software and games. It's why the vast majority of developers younger than about 30 are either working on internal corporate software or on SaaS web apps. Nobody will graduate from university with a CS degree in 2015 thinking that they will sell software directly to people. Those graduates will dream of creating or working for a web service supported by ads or subscriptions. It won't be any more 'free', in fact it will probably be much worse than the shrink-wrapped proprietary software of the 90s (your data controlled by a 3rd party server, tracking for ads, no ability to stick with old versions, software stops working when the server goes down etc). But despite that it feels more morally acceptable to people to work on SaaS, and I think the way freedom is framed by the GPL is a big part of that. People who work at Facebook or AirBnB or Twitter or Google don't view themselves as evil merchants of proprietary software. They see themselves as socially aware employees of modern companies who 'get it' and support open source and free software - look how much open source code facebook and google gift to the world! The marketing push towards open source was a mind blowing runaway success. It killed the most profitable industry ever seen in human history and replaced it with an even more profitable subscription service where a non trivial amount of the work is done for free by volunteers. This hasn't impacted developer employment because the overall industry has grown due to the huge number of SaaS companies springing up every day. It remains to be seen if that's sustainable. (There's enough profitable B2B SaaS subscriptions based companies to mean it probably is, overall, but the ad supported consumer sector is a bit scary, at least from an outside perspective).

loup-vaillant 11y ago

We don't hear much about them, but most software is actually custom software. Only a tiny fraction of software enjoys wide distribution. Operating systems and Web browsers for instance are a minuscule niche, in terms of development effort. They just have a disproportionate impact. Writing decent quality Free Software is easy: write custom software. Just give them the source code, and assign copyright to them. Or, give them a GPL (or BSD) licensed copy. Depending on the specifics, the software may not be free for you. But it will be free for its sole user, which is what matters.