

Ask HN: I want to live in a free, open-source world. What should I do? - reedlaw

As I've seen open-source technologies improve, while proprietary ones becoming more and more draconian in restricting freedoms and imposing arbitrary burdens on us, I feel a longing to work with and use as much of the free ecosystem as I can. At the same time I've begun attempting to extricate my data from the serfdom of Facebook, Google, and the like.<p>I firmly believe that, all other things being equal, an open-source product is superior to a closed-source one. And so I am grieved when the superior eBook reader on the market is the Kindle, and the best motion-sensing technology is largely closed (e.g. Kinect and Leap Motion), and so on. What a breath of fresh air my Linux OS and open-source web development stack are when compared to closed alternatives. If I have any problem whatsoever, I can either find help from the community or look at source code on github.<p>So my question is, how can I live so that the benefits of open-source are maximized while the detriments of closed-source are minimized? I don't want to become an extremist zealot, but I wish my work to benefit as many people as possible. What are my career choices? How can I sustain open-source projects?
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readme
I could write a big essay and I almost did, but I'll shorten it.

The world will never be open source. But, lots of awesome tools, libraries,
programming languages, and servers, are. Get a job working on web
applications, because you'll get to use lots of free and open technology that
way, and likely contribute back to projects.

Open source is not the answer to every problem. Proprietary software beats it
in several ways and will never disappear. Anyone telling you something else is
ignoring the overwhelming mound of data called reality. OTOH, I love open
tools and prefer them over proprietary ones by far. But, there's not a damn
chance in the world that the next big thing everyone uses is going to be
developed bazaar style.

Open source might produce some better software, but companies are the most
efficient beast for producing _anything_. Companies will only open source
things when it benefits them (logically), and since open sourcing code will
not benefit companies 100% of the time, the primary producers of software
(companies) will prevent this open source utopia from ever existing.

~~~
reedlaw
I do work on web applications for a living. So I get to use lots of great free
software. But all too often, the fruit of my labor is heavily restricted by
copyright and licensing or, worse, neither used nor allowed to be re-used
because the idea didn't take off. Yet the shareholders still want to fiercely
protect it.

Why can't there be more open-source companies? Gittip is the only example I
know of so far. The catch 22 seems to be how can a company grow if its
products are open source, or how can it remain open source while somehow
charging customers?

~~~
larkarvin
look at wordpress, magento or ubuntu they take consulting and hosting payments
but their main product are open source.

It seems ghost blogging platform will use the same business model.

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Deejahll
Volunteerism, public-funded research projects, and progressive open-source-
friendly companies are the best thing we FOSS advocates have until business
models that are more appropriate for the Information Age become popular.

Commercial and closed-source software exists because we've accepted the
foisting of a manufacturing-age business model upon intangible (digital)
works. It is inherently unfair to charge by-the-copy for goods that cost $0 to
manufacture, but we accept the obscene profits that the industry winners make
because it's hard and risky to envision or implement other models.

Many FOSS licenses including the GPL encourage the programmer to charge as
much as she wishes for the software. But, if we allow the customer the same
rights as they have with tangible (physical) goods, then they're allowed to
turn around and give away copies for nothing, undercutting the original
developer. So we might as well just give it away.

If only there were a way to ensure that the original developer gets
compensated for the time they spend developing their work, but still permits
software to be sold without draconian restrictions.

I was really excited when Kickstarter came along because that was the closest
thing to a "fair" business model that I had encountered: customers don't
receive the product until enough people agree to purchase the product.

If more marketplaces existed that we creators of "intangible goods" could take
advantage of, I think we'd see a lot more, higher-quality FOSS software.
Creative commons by-sa-licensed works of illustration, literature, and music,
too.

Kickstarter's model is one of many variants. If this sort of thing is
interesting to you, google "Dominant Assurance Contracts":
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contract>

------
brudgers
GNU imposes arbitrary burdens and restrictions upon use, too. There are
licenses and the underlying logic of intellectual property rights remains
unchanged as well as claims of interest in derivative works.

TANSTAAFL

~~~
reedlaw
I don't subscribe to the entire GNU/GPL philosophy. But it does serve as a
useful standard or benchmark of software freedom. GPL, Public domain, Creative
Commons, MIT, and BSD-style licenses all serve their purpose and are all
preferable to proprietary licenses or EULAs.

~~~
brudgers
In my opinion, two issues tend to be conflated - licensing and access to
source code. That these are separate issues is obvious - on the one hand, by
looking at the Creative Commons License where access to the original material
is no different than it is with regard to a work published by Disney. On the
other hand, a proprietary license may provide access to source code - this is
less common today than several decades ago, and certainly less common in
consumer facing applications than B2B software.

GNU is an interesting philosophical position, and one I admire to a
significant extent. But it is not a universal solution. Emacs is not for my
mom. Word is simply a better option - for much the same reason that the
factory manuals are a better option than Wikipedia when my mechanic tunes my
Cooper.

~~~
reedlaw
So proprietary software can have open source code, even living on github? What
kind of license is that? I know that GPL and other open source licenses are OK
with charging money for distribution of binaries, but usually with the source
code.

~~~
brudgers
MySQL is dual licensed under GPL and a proprietary license.

<http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/>

~~~
reedlaw
Ah yes, a dual license. But to dual license the project has to own all the
rights to every part of the system, correct? That is, it can't incorporate
other libraries that are incompatible with the proprietary license.

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Skoofoo
I wonder if there is any way to turn FOSS into a mainstream movement. The only
thing really stopping FOSS from becoming more commonplace is the lack of
consumer demand and awareness.

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lifeisstillgood
If you are in the UK sign up for my only just started campaign.
<http://www.oss4gov.org>

Basically local government should find local developers to build FOSS software
to run tiny government only problems (electoral roll management software).

Open source code is a public good and should be publically funded ( but there
needs to be some competitive market solution - still some kincks to work out)

Code for America has similar ideas in USA - they have fellowships to be
applied for now

~~~
DanBC
> tiny government only problems (electoral roll management software).

Is electoral roll management software really a tiny problem?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Well it's one of 2000 services local govt are expected to supply so it's a
niche. Plus it _seems_ to be a dedupe issue along with pretty standard
database work (UK has what 50 m voters? SQLite would manage that !

Important yes - tiny maybe

Then again I don't know anything about the electoral roll mgmt domain and more
importantly _I cannot go read any code to learn_

(Well the law is the code)

~~~
DanBC
Ah, okay. I was mistaking "tiny" for "really easy". Some of that de-duping and
verification is probably quite tricky.

I do agree with you though, it'd be great if government was using better
software and making better use of open source.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Its probably not the best example - its clear because _only_ governments do
electoral roll stuff. But it is not really a discrete application one can put
in the cloud.

I am pretty confident that I can find suitable pilot applications _and_ get
council leaders interested in seeing them delivered - through the new
shortcuts of GCloud.

Join the mailing list. GO on, you know you want to :-)

