
Open Source Is Eternal - wishigotitfree
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/open-source-eternal
======
TAForObvReasons
The last few paragraphs discuss file format conversion. Unfortunately, many
companies have weaponized data representation as a way to force customer lock-
in. What should have been simple data has been muddied in a way that prevents
users from switching to other applications. The only real answer is to do what
many people do: keep old machines running the software necessary to open the
old data.

~~~
oever
HTML5, a 'living standard' is a similarly weaponized version of HTML. Just the
part of the specification that deals with parsing is prohibitively complicated
and expensive to implement for new browsers.

------
kemitchell
Plain text is eternal. If you’re worried about prose formats, use that.

I can’t help quibbling with the lead:

> Open source has won the present, but what about the future?

Open source has only “won” for programmers. With rare, beautiful exception,
open stops just shy of end users, at the point where they have to pull out
their credit cards. And GDPR notwithstanding, it’s still impractical for most
end users to get most data about them in any practical, continuous fashion.

Great time to be a software producer. Not such a great time to be a software
consumer. Unless you’re willing to trade nearly everything off for convenience
and more freemium.

~~~
TeMPOraL
>> _Open source has won the present_

> _Open source has only “won” for programmers_

Both statements are true.

Open Source was always about _developer_ benefit. The movement around _end-
user_ benefit is called Free Software. The one promoted by Stallman and the
FSF, the one practiced by people releasing software under GPL family of
licenses. This movement has definitely _not_ won.

~~~
jondubois
> Open source has only “won” for programmers

This is completely false. Corporations and Venture Capitalists are the ones
who capture most of the value from open source projects. Independent
developers got screwed over big time. We are the biggest losers. To the point
that we probably would have been better off without open source. I've met
popular, very skilled open source developers who can't even make a living as
developers.

The top 10 open source developers in the world only earn a high/normal salary
(e.g. Evan You of VueJS earns about $200K from Patreon; probably less than
what he got at Google as a regular employee). He probably also makes money
from conferences and talks; it's not bad, but if you look at the top musicians
in the world, the 200th most popular musician alive probably earns millions
per year.

The 200th most popular open source developer alive is probably a homeless
person.

~~~
skybrian
This is sort of like saying the only people who benefit from music are the
music industry. A lot of the benefit of open source isn't easily measured in
dollars, so it's difficult to say who benefits more, businesses or users.

Nearly everyone builds their software on top of open source libraries, so the
beneficiaries or "free riders" if you prefer include both lots of other
programmers and the end users who download their software.

But, that's the choice you make when you choose to work for free and give away
your stuff. Isn't it a bit weird that we expect anything else? And yet
occasionally it works, you can sometimes capture a small fraction of the value
through Patreon or whatever.

If you want a less precarious income, there are jobs working on open source
software. The 200th most popular open source developer probably works at
Google.

~~~
jondubois
>> But, that's the choice you make when you choose to work for free

Choice is a relative thing. A lot of developers go into open source as a last
resort because they believe that it's the only way that they can get access to
users. Corporations have a near monopoly over users.

~~~
skybrian
Since we're on Hacker News, I'll point out that starting your own company is
another approach, though it can also be a hard way to go.

Sometimes the real issue is that the market is very competitive and user
expectations are high, which is the opposite of a monopoly, though it can
still make it very tough to break in.

------
cryptonector
Legacy is eternal. Open or closed makes no difference.

