
FOSS is free as in toilet - bellinom
http://unhandledexpression.com/general/2018/11/27/foss-is-free-as-in-toilet.html
======
yason
I don't see the relevance. Open source developers need not be burning
themselves out, they can just choose to work on what they want.

If a big company uses an open source library there's no contractual agreement
that the developer must slave away for free and fix stuff for the big company.
The developer, or the company that develops open source, can just essentially
say "fuck it!" and do whatever they want.

Instead, the big company can take what's available. If it's not enough, they
can contribute to the open source project (a wise move!), find a replacement
project to ride on, or buy or write their own implementation.

Not all open source developers work for free but many do because they want to
spend some of their time building something they care about. If the project
has big impact sometimes the developers get hired to continue working on the
software on a payroll. This is probably a win-win: the developer gets paid to
do what he would be doing anyway and the company gets stability into future
development.

If open source developers want to build a good, trusted brand of their
software then it of course takes continuous involvement to support their users
and can lead to burn-outs but that has _nothing to do with open source_. The
exact same applies to building an established brand out of proprietary
software.

And that effort only makes sense in the first place if there's a chance for a
significant financial payout in the end, or the developers really, really just
want fame in which case they have their own priorities on how they want to
resource the development.

Still, nothing to do with open source per se.

I bet a thousand-fold more developers are burning out in jobs working on
proprietary software.

~~~
bad_user
I’m not sure what your point is.

As a personal curiosity, do you maintain open source projects that actually
have users depending on it?

I’m asking because when people say that OSS devs of popular projects suffer
from burnout, that’s not an opinion, but a matter of fact.

And no, it’s not the same as a regular job. It’s more like starting your own
company, except without the payoff.

~~~
azangru
> do you maintain open source projects that actually have users depending on
> it? I’m asking because when people say that OSS devs of popular projects
> suffer from burnout, that’s not an opinion, but a matter of fact.

Not the author of the parent comment and not a maintainer of a popular open-
source project, but could you explain the process of how devs get into this
trap of burning out? I mean, there are quite a few projects that have been
abandoned by people who lost interest or have too much on their plate, so
their authors are by no means forced to stay on the project if they no longer
want or are able to. These projects can be forked or taken up by other
maintainers.

~~~
bad_user
It's easy to get into that trap.

We love to code and the projects you work on become like your babies. Have you
ever heard of this expression from people doing what they love, or from people
starting their own companies? "Like your baby"?

Well the trap is that you end up putting a lot of work in it, at first it's
for fun, but then it's because what you're doing is popular and you hope of
leaving something valuable behind. And unfortunately these things happen:

1\. the project is never done, there's always some feature that people want or
some bug waiting to be fixed, or some dependency waiting to be upgraded (these
are the worst) and if nobody does it, then users will end up abandoning the
project

2\. people willing to contribute are very rare and people capable of great
contributions and of sharing the maintenance burden are like unicorns

So the answer is: if you don't keep doing it, the project dies. In which case
all of your effort was for nothing.

~~~
azangru
> In which case all of your effort was for nothing.

I thought people maintain open-source projects if they use them themselves. In
which case, all your effort was for solving particular use cases that you had.

When developers have no further use for a project (e.g. when they've moved on
to a different technology), then the project will likely die. I haven't seen
many people keep maintaining a project after they've stopped using it.

~~~
rleigh
You can stop using the tool yourself, but still have a large active userbase
depending upon it. As a result, you can still end up with an unwritten
obligation to support that userbase.

------
jancsika
That's one of the funniest titles I've read in a long time.

That said, this is an incoherent rant. What does Google/Facebook's "jealously
guarded" user data have to do with how FOSS developers are treated and
remunerated?

I get the feeling that if I could time-travel back to magically solve the
social media and data privacy problem purely with FOSS, some other non-
sequitur complaint would pop off the queue into the slot for that sentence.

["Besides, even with FOSS we still don't control the hardware", "FOSS UIs
stink", "Year of the Linux Desktop LOL", "FOSS has just as many bugs as
proprietary software", "GNU is less secure than IOS"].push("etc.");

~~~
dvfjsdhgfv
> That said, this is an incoherent rant. What does Google/Facebook's
> "jealously guarded" user data have to do with how FOSS developers are
> treated and remunerated?

It's because arguably in the past (80-90s) the highest value was with the
code, and it was it that was jealously guarded. Now the code doesn't have that
much value and there are clones of almost everything, and the weight shifted
towards the piles of user data. In other words, if I'm motivated enough, I can
create a Facebook clone (with less useless functionality but arguably better
user experience) in 2-3 months, but I'll never be able to gather a fraction of
the user data they managed to get.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I'll never be able to gather a fraction of the user data they managed to get

But they got that user data, though having the code. The code is still the
essential bit in the first place. If someone else had had the Facebook code
before they did, they could have gotten the data.

~~~
woolvalley
Code has become a commodity of sorts, just like construction expertise for
build 20 story high rises.

It's a good clean data set to train ML models that is the current proprietary
advantage set.

~~~
keypress
Then there should be a push for anonymous open data sets.

~~~
chrisseaton
In practice it turns out to be nearly impossible to anonymise data sets.

------
tokyodude
Funny but, at least in the USA, public toilets are a great example of the
tragedy of the commons. They are almost universally destroyed. In malls and
shopping centers, in fast food restaurants and cafes, in movie theaters.

I'm sure there are worse countries but I also know there are plenty of better
countries. As an American it depresses me. My culture seems to be one of "it's
a rite of passage to destroy the commons" that includes kicking in the doors
to toilet stalls until they break. Peeing standing up in a toilet when their
are perfectly good urinals. Putting entire roles of toilet paper in the toilet
"just for fun". It's so common that AFAIK it's just assumed that's the way the
world is. It's not. Plenty of other countries don't have that culture.

I've often wished someone one like The Lonely Island would find a comedy meme
to make it embarrassing to be caught trashing/breaking/abusing public
restrooms. Well I can dream that my culture would change.

~~~
mifreewil
Interested to know how unique US is in this regard. If your name checks out, I
assume Japan is one such country where things differ from your experience. I
would guess that Japan is the exception though, not the rule.

~~~
mcv
Why do you assume the behaviour in the US would be the rule? I have on
occasion come across toilets in a terrible state, but for the most part,
toilets in Europe, paid or not, tend to be fairly decent. In need of cleaning,
sure, but it's certainly not common for people to kick in the doors or
anything like that.

Well, the office in which I'm currently working seems to have some people with
a surprisingly poor aim, so there's that. But there's certainly no culture to
intentionally destroy the place.

My experience is mostly western Europe.

~~~
mifreewil
I wouldn't say it's common for people to kick doors in either, I'm sure it
happens though. More likely to happen at a place like a dive bar - that
wouldn't surprise me, or some place where the bathroom appearance isn't seen
as a high priority - like a gas station.

------
anfilt
Pretty short, but funny analogy. I would say true in some regards.

~~~
orionblastar
FOSS like a free toilet needs maintenance from time to time. In Thailand, the
toilets are pay in some areas and they clean them and take care of them. In
the USA they used to have paid toilets but got rid of them because it was
called discrimination against the poor.

A reason why pay software does so well is that there is hand holding within a
phone call away if something goes wrong. With FOSS you might have a bug report
and hope it gets fixed in the next release.

~~~
zeroname
> In the USA they used to have paid toilets but got rid of them because it was
> called discrimination against the poor.

Meanwhile, in "socialist" Europe, paid toilets are the norm. Then again, wild
urination isn't a sex offense either.

~~~
wongarsu
In Europe you have to try very hard to fall below the level where you can
afford 1€ for a toilet. Arguments that poor people can't use pay toilets don't
really work with all that money spent to make sure people always have enough
to life with some dignity.

~~~
nnq
...it's not about affording: when they're drunk and can't find any change in
your pocket, they end up pissing on a wall and stiking up the whole street.
Some things _need to be free_ even if they are _easily affordable_ simply
because (1) there's enough tax money to cover for it, and (2) a (large)
proportion of people will simply find payment inconvenient so won't use the
paid service, _making life stinkier for everyone around._

But hey, at least they got it right with EDUCATION, which probably matters
more than this :)

------
jamespitts
The author decries that governance and tragedies of the commons are for inert
resources. This is not the case, but perhaps this thinking pervades software
projects. We can learn from Elinor Ostrom's economics work, as well as from
Christopher Allen's thinking/writing about the commons of open source projects
in particular.

Ostrom’s Design Principles for Collective Governance of the Commons

[http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2015/11/a-revised-ostroms-
de...](http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2015/11/a-revised-ostroms-design-
principles-for-collective-governance-of-the-commons-.html)

------
notacoward
I get the author's point, and it's a good one, but I think it could be better
made without connecting free software to defecation. The metaphor I'd reach
for might be more like a park bench or water fountain, which can also be
appropriated or degraded by selfish users but doesn't start out with that
negative association.

------
fiatjaf
You mean you want companies to stop relying on FOSS and start paying for
people to write "better code" for them while at the same time programmers
should stop working on FOSS and just start working on things they're paid for?
Great idea, that will surely improve things.

------
dustycat
Same old, same old:

[https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html](https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html)

------
proactivesvcs
Perhaps before flinging the first roll of toilet paper, one should put up a
sign with the name of the software used to create the toilet.

------
polotics
By the way whatever happened to attempts to set up FOSS licenses that prohibit
the usage of "free" software on a range of damaging exploitative activities?
Eg. "It's free, or one million per day if your company pays any worker less
than a living wage / kills people / allows enforcement of human rights
violation like, ironically, restrictions on freedom of speech..."

~~~
brylie
"Ethical source" licenses exist, such as the Do No Harm license:

[https://github.com/raisely/NoHarm](https://github.com/raisely/NoHarm)

[https://hackernoon.com/6-myths-about-ethical-open-source-
lic...](https://hackernoon.com/6-myths-about-ethical-open-source-
licenses-3bfbd042b1dc)

Software developers can also commit to a form of the Hippocratic Oath:

[https://github.com/Widdershin/programmers-
oath](https://github.com/Widdershin/programmers-oath)

[https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1016991](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1016991)

~~~
brylie
From The Obligation of the Engineer:

> As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises. When
> needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the
> public good.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer's_Ring#The_Obligati...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineer's_Ring#The_Obligation_of_The_Engineer)

~~~
TeMPOraL
It would be great if this (and the Iron Ring) was more popular worldwide.

Also, imagine every software developer taking an oath with the phrase you just
quoted. Adtech industry would disappear overnight.

~~~
Ygg2
> Adtech industry would disappear overnight.

That or the promise of doing good, would just be empty signaling.

------
Y_Y
So why don't national governments and local councils, create and maintain
software for the public good, like toilets?

I mean this in the euro-socialist model. If that's anathema to you, substitute
charity or benevolent technocrat.

~~~
chrisseaton
Software often doesn't look like a good idea up-front, so nobody would pay for
it up-front.

If you went to the government or a charity in 2003 before Facebook and said
you wanted funding to build it because it'll be critical to society in the
future, you'd be laughed out.

~~~
dnautics
And there's no guarantee that what you would build wouldn't be horrible in the
same way because it might be inherent to social media (vs inherent to ad-
driven social media... I don't know but no one has the data), or possibly
horrible in a completely different be way from how Facebook is horrible now.

------
keypress
How about a self cleaning toilet?

------
Traubenfuchs
The analogy is flawed. There is no congestion and wear associated with
software library use.

Also I am not afraid of FOSS dying or shrivelling up. From the perspective of
a career software developer or manager it would be a new golden age of in-
house development and library sales.

Less open source software = more jobs

~~~
sumanthvepa
No. Less open source software does NOT mean more jobs. It means fewer. For
example, if every startup that ever started had to buy a commercial database
@$100K license before doing anything, then very few startups would have
evolved. And all the employment they eventually generate would not
materialise. Free software was a huge factor in making the Internet possible
and all the jobs it created.

~~~
mcbits
Shoestring startups would use a $10 shareware database, which is still a
proprietary commercial database. Or they would use the stripped-down,
free/cheap version of the $100k database. Or they would pirate it and scramble
to make $100k before they get caught.

