A lot of open source software is written by people working for corporations. Red Hat may have started out as a plucky co-op but it’s now part of IBM. MySQL is written primarily by Oracle. The fact that the source is open doesn’t mean it’s all volunteer work.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a massive transfer of wealth, just that for a lot of it people were paid a fraction of the wealth they created rather than none at all.
Sidenote: Here’s a good article about how software developers can wage class warfare. Some tips are: Don’t help other people learn things, never write documentation, and make your code as opaque as possible so your boss doesn’t get anything from you for free.
Valve probably stands at the company who has “given back” the most in recent history (making Desktop Linux viable for the first time ever, mostly through gaming), but even Valve has corporate America skeletons in their closet. (Like the only reason they have a decent refund option now is because Australia basically forced them, and they had to change their flash sales for European laws.)
Valve’s bigger, and unforgivable crime, is their failure to release Half Life 3.
The real Half Life 3 is the friends and software we made along the way.
Or, you know, how they pioneered loot boxes and gambling to children in their games
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Valve still is a corporation, decently good at open source, but still a corporation that develops and distributes a lot of closed source software. Like the github ceo once wrote: open source the engine not the car, that’s what drives open source development for them. When many use their software and contribute patches and more importantly report bugs, everyone wins.
I don’t hate Valve, but let’s be real, they’re not adding to Linux out of the goodness of their hearts: They’re doing it to protect their profits because they see that Windows is quickly becoming more closed and has its own Xbox gaming storefront. It isn’t about belief in Linux as a product, it isn’t about improving it for everyone, it’s about improving it enough for gamers so that Steam won’t be eventually locked out of the digital games sales market by Microsoft. They’re basically just buying their way out of the vendor-lock-in of putting their store on someone else’s proprietary operating system.
I don’t think Linux desktop usage jumping from 1% to nearly 3% equals “everybody wins.” Sounds like to me a lot of fuckin people are still losing. Like 97% of them at least.
I don’t see the problem there. If someone is doing a good thing because it is profitable for them to do that good thing that’s fine.
You’re right, but the thing is most of the time companies do horrible things to boost their profits. Like Unity in the last few days. Valve doing seemingly pro-consumer things to protect their profits is a rarity, and it’s really only a side-effect that there’s consumer benefit. They aren’t doing it to benefit consumers, they’re doing it to preserve their marketplace. It’s a side effect that it gives consumers more options. Valve is an unusually forward-thinking company when it comes to its long-term viability.
Maybe I want to root for the unprecedentedly forward thinking companies, because it’s like a glimpse of what a lot of companies probably look like in other countries, especially the Nordic countries, that haven’t had a history that led to their governments being able to be used as a tool to stifle competition, unlike the US
Okay, I may have misunderstood the intent of your comment. I thought you were saying something like we should be mad at Valve for helping Linux because it helps their profits. It now seems like you were just making sure everyone was aware of the context. Valve has always been one of the companies that is on a pedestal in gamers’ eyes. Like Bethesda prior to Fallout 76 and paid mods/creation club. I agree, we should hold them to the same level of scrutiny of other companies.
I don’t get what you try to say with your last paragraph. It sounds like you are worried that the poor 97% of Windows and Mac users are losing something because Linux is rising. Which makes absolutely no sense.
It sounds like they’re implying most people are losing because they use windows and Mac, instead of Linux, which I don’t completely disagree with because of the insane monopoly they have. Just look at all the ads and bloat on windows 11 for a brief example.
Computers must suck for the average user. I’d assume most people on this site would have no issue disabling annoyances in Windows. But most people probably just leave the defaults enabled, which is terrible.
I’ve been watching old episodes of Computer Chronicles lately - it’s amazing how much more user friendly Microsoft products were back in the day.
Enshittification is hitting windows hard these days. Windows 10 was okay in my book. I‘m probably not going to use windows 11. Currently preparing an ubuntu daily driver for operation.
But as doctorow said here, we are crawling back to old anti trust standards which we lost. It’s going to take a long time but it’s going.
I’m not the one who said “everybody wins” in regards to private corporations adding to open source projects while also not making clear what people are “winning” from it.
I don’t get your point at all. I know that you do not say that, but you don’t even have any counter argument.
The point is the claim was “everybody wins.” My point is “everybody” at best is 3% of the population who gives a shit about having control of their own software. No, mostly corporations win. Consumers get some fringe benefits at best. I’m not seeing regular people become multimillionaires simply because they use Linux instead of Windows. Mostly its weird fucking shut-ins.
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I wouldn’t say it’s a complete disservice. They made the Steam Deck. And while it’s just a fancy GUI (Steam in Game Mode or whatever it’s called), that’s exactly what people need for it to become mainstream. Besides, if it wasn’t for Valve’s Proton and Wine, I wouldn’t be using Linux as a daily driver today And they (as far as I know, take this with a grain of salt) pioneered the Handheld gaming space (and before you say Nintendo or PSP. They were different than the Steam Deck or the ROG Ally)
And it’s a dumpster fire unless you devote a ton of time. It’s never been viable as a product to the general public. It’s only recently is become even close for regular users.
The utter irony of this being a monetized medium.com article
An interesting read. The advocated actions have many similarities with the guild system.
I think we’d have fewer security problems if we had a tech guild. It would keep unqualified people from becoming sysadmins, for one.
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. -Adam Smith
If you think Guilds would solve security problems instead of just propping up security theater, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Like locksmiths who have produced locks with the same flawed design for six millennia now, and instead of fixing it, they’re still keeping the act and even went after whistleblowers before.
“How did you get in here?”
“I’m a locksmith, and I’m a locksmith. The unstated part of this joke is that us locksmiths make locks super easy to crack, we just don’t share the details with everybody.”
A lock is just a suggestion. A determined thief will find a way beyond it.
I’ve seen too many systems left wide open for me not to think we need some way of having actual experts vet people’s resumes and not a bunch of HR people.
I don’t disagree, but a “guild” is not it. Engineers in other disciplines have to actually have “engineering” credentials. Software engineers do not, but it sounds like they probably should considering other engineers are held to standards. The States have their own engineering boards to give out and monitor engineer license status. Why isn’t there one for software engineering? There needs to be, but it need not be a guild.
The States have their own engineering boards to give out and monitor engineer license status. Why isn’t there one for software engineering?
There used to be one! It was discontinued (a) for lack of interest since no jobs or regulations require it, and (b) because being eligible to sit for the Professional Engineer (P.E.) exam requires having spent X years (X=4 or more, depending on circumstances) working under the supervision of a licensed P.E., and not many software engineers worked under licensed P.E.s.
(I’m a software engineer with a civil EIT license and worked in the software industry under a civil P.E., so think I would’ve actually been one of the weirdos in a position to be licensed as a software P.E. Unfortunately, they did away with it before I got the chance.)
That last bit makes a lot of sense, actually, about not having enough licensed P.E. to work under for four years or more. That’s kind of a bummer, because the person I was responding to isn’t wrong, we’re handing the reigns of sysadmin duties to a lot of relatively under-trained folks.
However, on the flip side, the fact that we don’t have such a thing is part of what makes the internet so open. Literally anyone is allowed to make their own website.
The States have their own engineering boards to give out and monitor engineer license status. Why isn’t there one for software engineering?
Because unlike developers, engineers from poor countries can’t build stuff remotely.
In case there’s requirement to hire only software engineers with licence then companies will just outsource as much as they can.
In case there’s requirement to hire only software engineers with licence then companies will just outsource as much as they can.
When did the people in the outsourcing countries suddenly get a state endorsed software engineering license? I would think the opposite would happen, it would restrict outsourcing until other countries had similar licenses for software engineers.
“Bricks are used in most corporate structures… Brick-layers are boot-licking capitalist class-betrayers!”
What a stupid take…
Yeah agreed, you can use that logic with just about anything
you can use that logic with just about anything
wheat feeds the workers, which do work, transferring wealth to the top, wheat is a hyper capitalist class-betraying crop!
this was never not a Pascal’s muggingthats not exactly what I ment
On the other side, Free and Open Source Software leveled the playing field for software development by quite a lot. Before FOSS you had proprietary databases, proprietary OSes, proprietary web servers, etc, at every level of the chain. Without FOSS Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office would rule the roost. Without FOSS smart phones might’ve taken years longer, and have far less choices. Without FOSS the web would be drastically different. Without FOSS development would be harder to break into, and anything you tried to produce would involve 15 different licensing fees.
Everyone can equally profit off it. And hopefully, everyone (that can) will contribute.
Without FOSS Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office would rule the roost. Without FOSS smart phones might’ve taken years longer, and have far less choices.
Uhhh, Google Workspace isn’t FOSS and the only FOSS Office project that has market share is Libre Office with a whopping…1%.
Chromium may be “open source” but Google is definitely trying to make a walled garden, especially in respect to ads, and Chrome rules the roost. Chrome itself has plenty of proprietary software in it.
How is this any argument for something else? Your examples are weak, MS Office does rule the roost, and Chrome only rules the roost due to it being a Google product, not because of its open source bona fides.
Without FOSS smart phones might’ve taken years longer, and have far less choices.
Android is literally the reason bloatware from phone developers made a resurgence. It made modern phones worse than the shitty proprietary OSes driven by shitty phone manufacturers from the 90’s to 2007. Google allows manufacturers to install applications you can’t uninstall without rooting the device and risking your security.
How did that benefit consumers? To get a decent Android phone, you’re paying a shitload of money, just like you would be for an iPhone (a completely closed source product) and iPhone at least doesn’t have software bloat from your phone carrier/phone manufacturer.
Further, Google is literally attempting to use their web dominance to make it nearly impossible to implement ad blocking with Manifest v3. Their ad profits are more important to them than FOSS. How is denying the ability to block ads a “benefit” to consumers?
I agree with your points. But you can just download Android studio, hook your phone up in dev mode, and remove the bloatware packages as well as DT to prevent them from coming back. I did and I’ve not seen any carrier crap since.
That requires some technical knowledge that most people simply don’t have.
Most people dont care about the carrier apps on their phone I would say. There are guides that make it pretty painless. But yeah the Android Studio setup would probably turn off most non-tech people, though I found that easier than locating the packages, which wasn’t hard either.
you can’t uninstall without rooting the device and risking your security.
I see you bought into the fear mongering. Rooting your device doesn’t compromise your security. Malware that uses an exploit to gain root access does compromise your security, but that’s independent of a user rooting.
Here is a list of the volunteers of Linux 6.1: https://lwn.net/Articles/915435/
Huawai is the biggest contributor, followed by intel, google, amd… Most volunteers are all on a payroll. Companies working together on an industry standard is still noble, though.
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Thanks, this place is full of dreamers and sometimes it feels violent to bring realism and nuance into their wonderous worldview. I’m happy my comment got upvotes, the first readers can downvote you to drown at the bottom of a comment thread. Good to have multiple voices like ours here.
So, don’t mistake this as me telling you you’re totally wrong, because you definitely do have a point and it gets under my skin too (that’s why I believe licenses like AGPL and, dare I say, SSPL should be used), but many of these companies actively contribute back to the open source software they’re using.
and are hardly the only companies using FOSS; everyone from non profits to miliary systems use it. this meme doesn’t really work when you take the whole picture into account.
Regardless of how you slice it, foss devs don’t get fairly compensated for their work.
I have two diverging responses to this - one, if they’re credited for their commits, in the purview of FOSS projects, they’re compensated as much as they expect; two - that said, I would love to see FOSS projects get more love and financial support from the community - which is why watching the GODOT project has been exciting. I’m not much of a dev, and not in a position to contribute to what they’re doing in code, but sending them some coffee money has been worthwhile.
SSPL
TIL what that is.
… and [whistles], that’s a doozy!
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Side_Public_License:
[the SSPL] primarily replaces [the AGPL v3’s] section 13 “Remote Network Interaction; Use with the GNU General Public License.” with a new section that requires that anyone who offers the functionality of SSPL-licensed software to third-parties as a service must release the entirety of their source code, including all software, APIs, and other software that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves, under the SSPL. In contrast, the AGPL v3’s section 13 covers only the program itself (the copyrightable work licensed under AGPL v3).
I get what they’re going for and I sympathize with the goal, but I’m not sure there’s any software in the world that could comply with that license because it would have to release an entire container or disc image with nothing but SSPL software from the kernel on up. Does a SSPL-licensed kernel or httpd even exist?
They gotta want to do it I guess, lots of companies use like GPL code but don’t tell anyone.
Even if they want to do it, can they? The Wikipedia article claims that every piece of software necessary to run the service would have to be licensed as SSPL. Not just to have its source code released in compliance with whatever other copyleft or permissive license it was under, but relicensed as SSPL. That means (assuming the Wikipedia article is accurate, anyway) you can’t even run it on top of Linux and be in compliance with the license! You’d have to write your SSPL service for the bare metal hardware, or write an entire new SSPL-licensed OS for it.
So, without getting too into the specifics about SSPL because you and many of the critics of it I agree with in that it seems poorly thought out or too aggressive, I do think AGPL fails in some ways. Mongo and (I think) Elastic were both licensed under AGPL but made/changed to SSPL because of a perceived abuse by cloud services like Amazon. As for what exactly the cloud providers were doing that they perceived as wrong and what the best solution is I’m not too sure. It could be that Elastic’s own managed version of its product wasn’t getting any use because Amazon’s was benefiting from economy of scale and vendor lock in (“hey, we already have everything on AWS, let’s use AWS’s Elastic offering”) and if that’s the case then it’s not really a failing of software licenses and just a shitty and unfortunate situation.
One of the things libre software is trying to accomplish is letting anyone use it for anything and allowing competitors to monetize it is a valid use. It seems like Elastic and Mongo may have been trying to have a primary revenue stream be money from offering their own managed service and cloud providers were out competing with them. It’s hard to not see this as them being a parasite that will take over the host and eventually kill them both because the devs of the product will stop getting compensation.
Some products (I think QT is another example) offer a GPL/AGPL version but for a fee will give you a more traditional license (non copy left) and this allows users to have a way to keep their own code closed source while providing revenue for the creators. Win win. AGPL was made to fix a loophole of putting a GPLed product behind a web interface and then saying “hey I’m not technically distributing anything so I don’t have to release my source code.” You’d think that most enterprise folks would pay but it seems like the cloud providers didn’t need to because they found ways around AGPL or just didn’t modify anything.
Like I said in another comment, no matter how you look at the situation, open source devs are getting taken advantage of. Enterprise customers should set the example and monetarily support the devs of open source software they use. While they do sometimes it’s not the norm. Even within the same company you see mixed behaviors. Microsoft has been contributing code back to git and adding new features but also “stole” AppGet. They even interviewed the dev and asked specific questions about it. It’s just scummy. It’s a reminder that something being legal isn’t automatically ethical or moral.
Sorry but this is such a bad take.
Linux is free to install, free to use and most importantly free to learn
What is the alternative? How many people who are now in great jobs would have been unable to teach themselves the skills they need if IIS or another proprietary technology had won the server market instead.
Something had to fill the space, would you rather it was a technology that created barriers for people with the fewest advantages in life?
(Also as others have said, a lot of OSS development is funded by companies. Linux in particular being a great example)
That may be true, but there is (usually) also an upside. Any fixes and modifications must be shared back. Thank you copyleft licenses. Thank you GPL.
“must” is a strong word here, and the conditions which trigger “must” are amazingly narrow.
The GPL is not as fearsome as people make it out to be, and I wish it was. It’s a very capitalist license, and there are ways around its provisions.
Man, I’m so glad that the Border Patrol is using my tech to violently abuse refugees! It’s extra awesome that they sent back some modifications! I love it when I get help from *checks notes… fucking Nazis.
This is a joke, right? Cool beans that the people who decided to use the code for nefarious purposes helped make it cleaner. /s
Seriously, that’s really pathetic for an “upside.”
While we might not agree with immigration policy and power abuse, it’s hard to put moral limitations on who gets to use our software. While the example you gave is far from trivial.
The second we say someone can’t use our software for whatever reason, that’s the second the software is no longer truly free. It’s same with Open data.
If you set in writing that your software can be used by anyone, then you also take away the power of those in high places to interpret the licence in a discriminatory way.
Negativland helped create a Creative Commons license whose purpose was literally that. You didn’t have to give attribution to the original artist, but you were disallowed from using the work for profit/in advertisements/et cetera. The issue is backwards copyright law that says the only way copyright should be distributed is through ownership and capital. We need a copyright law that respects the original creators intent, if they don’t want it used commercially/in government. Not all of us are Tom Waits (who famously refused to license his work for commercial purposes) and happen to have the money to fight misuse of our creations in court.
Yes, I agree. And Creative Commons are a great example of peoples’ control over their work. My argument is that it wont be ‘the original artist’ who gets to interpret the licensing terms.
If I may take your example of border patrol abusing immigrants with your software. And I’m sorry for the trivial example beforehand.
Let’s say you put in licensing terms: “This software may not be used to endanger peoples lives and/or livelyhoods”. And software is used by both Border Patrol and the immigrants to protect/cross the border.
Both parties come before a judge, accusing the other party of misusing your software. Border patrol says the immigrants are endangering american people with crime etc. ,and the immigrants accuse the border patrol of violent beatings.
In whose favor would a judge decide?
P.S.: thanks for the link. I’m a huge Tom Waits fan, and had no idea about the voice-theft.
Both parties come before a judge, accusing the other party of misusing your software. Border patrol says the immigrants are endangering american people with crime etc. ,and the immigrants accuse the border patrol of violent beatings.
I agree with this except the refugees categorically aren’t using software if they’re at our borders with empty hands. The only argument that would matter in the court was whether or not the CBP was breaking the software license. The refugees aren’t in a position to use the technology, and as such, arguments about whether or not they’re violent are immaterial to the legal question of whether the Border Patrol broke the license and illegally used the software.
While I agree that in the end, it’s a decision by the courts, you’re still detailing the answers to how it would be handled based on how copyright currently functions and I’d wager with a re-organized and re-written copyright law, you’d have a lot fewer instances of being able to argue that.
I mean, we have court cases that never make it anywhere all the time based simply on the idea “standing.” Hell, our legal system doesn’t even respect the idea of it even though they reject it half the time. Conservatives wholesale made up someone refusing to make web pages for a “gay couple” who turned out to be a straight guy who never wrote such an email and the Supreme Court swallowed it and said “fuck standing, we’re giving him standing because we’re corrupt fucking assholes.”
So what I’m talking about includes legal system reform as well, which would preclude a lot of ability to waste developers time by illicitly using their work and then taking them to court over it.
HPE for example write on every IPMI and Firmware page that they are not allowing the use of the software in fields related to ABC weapon systems.
That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact.
I’d rather see it as having Internet, the backbone of a technology we profit a lot from, runs on free softwares.
That companies use it to make profit is the same as those using anything to make profit.
Companies are also using paper and pencils, desks and seats and all sort of things.
It was never unintentional. It benefits is all to have them use it, too.
Here’s an article all about how ‘open source’ coopted and recuperated ‘free software’ movement to the benefit of corps.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230703044529/https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler
The enduring emptiness of our technology debates has one main cause, and his name is Tim O’Reilly. The founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, a seemingly omnipotent publisher of technology books and a tireless organizer of trendy conferences, O’Reilly is one of the most influential thinkers in Silicon Valley. Entire fields of thought—from computing to management theory to public administration—have already surrendered to his buzzwordophilia, but O’Reilly keeps pressing on. Over the past fifteen years, he has given us such gems of analytical precision as “open source,” “Web 2.0,” “government as a platform,” and “architecture of participation.” O’Reilly doesn’t coin all of his favorite expressions, but he promotes them with religious zeal and enviable perseverance. While Washington prides itself on Frank Luntz, the Republican strategist who rebranded “global warming” as “climate change” and turned “estate tax” into “death tax,” Silicon Valley has found its own Frank Luntz in Tim O’Reilly.
We’ve got them right where we want them, they are nothing without us. Oh wait they have never been anything without us
Hegel
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On the other hand, I’d wager that any given person who uses Linux daily at work is far more likely to own a stake in their company than the average worker.
My Linux laptop is also literally my means of production, which I own. Karl Marx never predicted this.
He also didn’t predict a class of people born with no labor to sell because so much of it has been automated away. How are they supposed to use their labor as a bargaining chip if they can’t find labor to do to begin with?
Actually I think that’s kind of exactly what he predicted. Technological determinism would inevitably manifest the violent downfall of capitalism.
Marx wasn’t a technological determinist though. He believed that a workers revolution would bring the end of capitalism. He even thought it would happen druing his lifetime.
Marx did talk about individuals owning the means of production. For example farmers or craftsmen owning their tools before capitalism. Marx talked about the means of production being shared under communism and not owned by one specific person or capitalist. If anything Marx predicted FOSS lol.
Except this is really reductionist and ignores there is very little “open hardware” out there, and few people producing it. So while you might have access to the “means of production” through software, you absolutely do not in hardware.
Great that software tools are in the hands of the worker, but the means to fabricate the machines that code runs are definitively not owned by workers. (To say nothing of issues with getting drivers for a DIY motherboard working with Linux long-term.)
Also, not everyone is born to code, so it’s a bit elitist.
You can use FOSS without knowing how to code though. I wasn’t completely serious I know Marx didn’t predict FOSS but I do think it’s an example of how the means of production being shared could look like. It would be great if that also included open hardware as well.
Edit: I realize it means the workers doesn’t actually own the means of production but it’s a step in that direction and I don’t think it contradicts what Marx said is my point.
Tell me how the math works out on this one.
Because last I checked, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and Google still are the biggest companies and their wealth rests primarily on closed source software.
I would think for the “largest” transfer of wealth, we would be able to pinpoint some poor exploited geeks coding software juxtaposed against some rich fat cats making money off of it.
But Linus Torvalds doesn’t seem poor and IBM/Red Hat, while rich, is much smaller than Microsoft.
I agree with this take, but Google does stand pretty tall on Open Source. Android is technically the most widely used Linux variant in use.
Sure, they all use open source to varying degrees.
But most of Android is actually contributed by engineers who are being paid by Google.
We could argue that $300K in San Francisco is still exploitation, but there are worse forms of exploitation in any case.
Android is technically the most widely used Linux variant in use.
And I wouldn’t be surprised if ChromeOS is second.
Apple I think relies heavily on the BSD project (I think they might be even using the same kernel?) and Google on Linux. There’s also probably a lot of open-source software they use behind the scenes or which aren’t as big.
They use their own kernel but a lot of the userland is FreeBSD-based (and some senior FreeBSD contributers are also Apple employees)
In Linus’ defense, I would probably pay the person that wrote and maintains the software that literally runs the world pretty well too. Can’t afford not to.
