
Open Source Is Winning, and Now It's Time for People to Win Too - rbanffy
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/open-source-winning-and-now-its-time-people-win-too
======
fwip
I don't know if this article is the right entrypoint for this discussion, but
I think a conversation we need to have is how to teach people that they
deserve to be treated well by their software.

If you'll permit me a (perhaps inappropriately severe) analogy to
relationships, victims in abusive relationships often stay in the relationship
because they think their partner's behavior is excusable. Sometimes, this is
because they haven't seen good, healthy relationships modeled for them before.
"This is just how relationships are," they might think.

While I think the term "abuse" is likely too strong for corporate software's
relationship with their users, I do think we can leverage this same approach.
By developing and maintaining "shining stars" of the open-source world, we can
provide concrete examples to people that it's possible for their software to
have a purposefully healthy relationship with them.

The article calls out examples like Emacs, Perl, and Python, but the
proportion of people who use software and have used (and liked) these tools is
vanishingly small. What's a more appropriate shining star, our new beacon to
show everyone how Software Ought To Be?

The first example that comes to my mind is Firefox - but that was perhaps more
applicable in a pre-Chrome world.

~~~
chrisseaton
Nobody likes someone else expressing opinions on their relationships though.
And nothing gets someone to defend their abuser more strongly than telling
them they're being abused.

~~~
fwip
Exactly, that's why you gotta show, not tell. We've been telling them stuff
like "walled gardens are bad" instead of showing them a better way, and
allowing them to realize that they can have better on their own.

------
thejohnconway
I think this tacitly article is admitting something I've come to believe, that
open source came to concentrate on on the wrong end of the problem.

What I care about is being able to get to my stuff - forever. Open source
might help with that if it runs on my computer, and someone out there with the
skill to maintain it decides to keep doing so (even most programmers have
little hope of actually maintaining most of the software they use). The focus,
I believe, should always have been on data formats, interchange, and local
storage, not on the source code of programs.

I'd rather live in a world with no open source software and open data formats
than the world we seem to be heading into: one running on open technology
stacks with all the data sitting on servers somewhere in formats we can only
guess at.

~~~
Sargos
Thankfully it looks like we are heading into a world with open technology
stacks (Ethereum, IPFS, WASM) and open data formats where all dapps integrate
and share data with each other permissionlessly.

~~~
richardwhiuk
I see zero evidence that IPFS or Etherum will have substantially market
adoption in the near future....

------
partiallypro
Unpopular opinion...but imo open source has, completely by accident, caused
the centralization of the internet. Because software licensing is less
profitable, we've since gotten all the big software makers into the server
game, and their infrastructure becomes what you are licensing instead. Their
infrastructure could be based on something OpenSource, but you might still be
vendor locked into AWS, Azure, GCS, etc.

~~~
mlinksva
Imagine universe in which open source does not exist. Would the internet be
less centralized? What's the mechanism?

~~~
eikenberry
More likely the internet would just not exist or would be entirely centralized
in services like AOL.

~~~
mlinksva
I agree, even wrote a quaint blog post on that long ago
[https://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2006/08/07/aolternative-
histor...](https://gondwanaland.com/mlog/2006/08/07/aolternative-history/) ...
but partiallypro seemed to be claiming the close to the opposite, that open
source caused centralization. I'd still love to read a justification for that
claim!

------
saagarjha
> It's sometimes okay—and even preferable—for a company to make less money
> deliberately, when the alternative would be to do things that are
> inappropriate or illegal.

Or, to make it more personal: it's sometimes okay for _you_ to make less
money. Sure, Facebook might pay more than anyone else, but you need to balance
that with the fact that you might be paying with your ethics…

~~~
strikelaserclaw
People know about this, they just don't care. As long as people can't see the
immediate consequences of their actions, like 9/10 people will take the money
and run.

~~~
lapinot
Depends on education and social circles imho. It's not about caring, it's
about confronting with the question, which may involve communication,
research, experience.

------
softwaredoug
Open source is winning. But it’s armed by money from the big software giants
that want to commoditization software (see “commoditize your compliments[1]).
This largely comes at the expense of medium sized companies and furthers tech
consolidation into the Big 5 tech cos. Is this a good thing?

[1] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-
letter-v/](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/)

~~~
mikekchar
To be frank, most companies trying to make money from open source software
have (IMHO) very poor business plans. You need to understand where your value
is. Non-foss organisations tend to think that their value is in the
accumulated bits that is their software. The artificial scarcity that is their
"intellectual property", their monopoly on copying the software, is what
creates the value. If you relax your exclusive rights (as you do with FOSS),
then this no longer holds value.

Some companies, having relaxed their exclusive rights decide that they will
provide autonomous services on top of their software. This is basically SaaS.
But again, if you relax your exclusive rights to the software, then _anyone_
can offer the same services. If, because they are able to scale better than
you can, they can offer it cheaper (and/or better) then you will not be able
to compete.

These things are so obvious to me that I find it absolutely incredible that it
is a surprise to anyone. And yet, I see companies building business plans on
top of nothing.

If you want to make a business doing FOSS, then you need to understand where
your value lies. It is not in the exclusivity of the software. It almost
certainly is not in the SaaS because unless you have a really compelling story
for executing your service, more established companies will eat your lunch. So
what is your value?

Your value is that _you wrote the software_. You are the expert. You drive the
direction of the project. You own a trademark that you don't share with your
competitors (unless you are insane).

But what that means is that you can't just write some software and sit on your
laurels as the money rolls in. You can't write some software and stick it up
on some server somewhere and watch the money roll in. You actually have to do
something to make more money. Everything in your organisation has to be
oriented towards, "What's next?" What are you going to do that someone will
pay for? Training? Services? Custom development? A promise for the next
version? A tie in with hardware? It doesn't matter, but the key is that it has
to be of the category: you do something to get paid. It can't be: I already
did the thing and now I'm going to sell it.

And yes. I think it's a good thing.

------
ss7pro
Opensource is not volunteers. I would say the most successfull opensource
projects are driven by people who get their paycheck for developing them. Look
at Linux, Kubernetes, mariadb ... They represent multi milion dollar
investments by small, big and huge companies. People doing mainstream
opensource as their side task do not exist.

~~~
icebraining
The obvious counter-example is OpenSSL: used everywhere, yet survived based on
volunteer work for years. I would be surprised if there weren't plenty more in
the myriad of dependencies used by those well-known projects.

~~~
zantana
Yes, my feeling always has been open source works best when the developers are
the users since they feel the pain and see what needs to be changed.

------
jasonhansel
This is why we need the (A)GPL: to ensure that products built on open-source
tech can benefit the community at large.

~~~
kryptiskt
It's not a panacea. The companies that are using the (A)GPL often uses it more
as a cudgel to get their customers to pay up for an enterprise version under
commercial licensing.

~~~
jasonhansel
I actually think this is a positive, as it provides one way of funding open
source projects, while keeping them available to the community at large. But
I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.

------
rini17
Open source both won and has died. Despite my ability to dig into big C/C++
codebase and fix a bug, I don't do the Linux kernel, KDE, LibreOffice nor a
browser anymore. My eventual fix (regardless if accepted by upstream) is
doomed to become obsolete quickly because of all the complexity and the rush
for new shiny things.

------
rini17
This paragraph spoiled whole article for me. I fail to understand how
switching Scheme for Python relates to ethics?

"A few years ago, MIT changed its intro computer science course away from the
traditional (and brilliant) class that used Scheme to one that used
Python..(snip).. the professors who wrote the course indicated that for
today's software engineers, learning to code isn't enough. You also need to
learn topics such as ethics."

~~~
noisem4ker
Maybe Python as a "real world" language enables programmers to participate in
open source projects more easily compared to Scheme, which is primarily used
in academia?

------
mark_l_watson
Great article by Reuven, he always writes interesting stuff. Open source has
won in the sense that it plays a central role in the modern cloud to edge
device world we live in.

However, I think we can only declare victory if we agree on a shared victory:
proprietary software like iOS, macOS, Windows, Word, etc., etc. is also
central to most people’s lives.

I am happy with a shared victory but my respect to people who are free of non-
libre software.

~~~
reuven
Thanks so much; I just found the article on HN a few moments ago!

------
batoure
I don't know that open source software as whole is winning I think that
license free open source libraries published through source management on the
internet are winning. But I tend to think of "software" as being end to end
applications and I don't know that there are really all that many OSS or FOSS
applications that I think are truly "winning"

------
yarrel
"Teaching kids about open source? Don't forget to teach them ethics as well."

Just teach them about Free Software. That way they won't think that ethics is
just an additional cost that you can discard while still being """open""".

~~~
sqrt17
Ethics is about humans in general, while Free Software primarily cares about
the freedoms of software tinkerers. Most people won't magically feel more free
or more ethical when their Wifi card stops working because something or
someone wanted to exclude "non-free" drivers.

Free Software ideology (yes, it is one) also won't tell you how to make the
lives of those people better who - for whatever good or bad reason - can't
tinker themselves out of their problems. Which is mostly everyone. In that
sense, teaching them about Free Software _instead of_ about ethics is a
similarly bad idea as wanting to teach people Christianity _instead of_
ethics. Christian and Free Software culture give you some start when it comes
to ethics, but can't replace ethical considerations themselves.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Here's a clear benefit to non-tinkerers, from Stallman himself:

"You deserve to be able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it
breaks."

from [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-
free.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.en.html)

I don't need to know any plumbing myself to appreciate the fact that I can
hire professionals to fix or enhance my home system other than the ones who
originally built it.

------
fgheorghe
As much of a fan of Open Source as I am, I've come to realise the OSS has
killed indie development. Many OSS projects are built for free to show as
proof of skills when applying for jobs, with the outliers being cash cows for
major cloud service providers.

------
RickJWagner
If I could go back in time and give myself 2 words of advice for the future,
they might well be 'Open Source'.

Or 'Alabama football'.

Either one could easily be monetized to great effect.

------
OnlyRepliesToBS
'open source' is a brand name co-opted and subverted

------
luckylion
Reading things like this, I wonder if there's actually a shortage of ethical
understanding, that is, that people who do unethical things simply don't know
that what they're doing isn't okay, that they perhaps never even had a thought
occur in that direction. That could be solved by teaching everybody about
ethics.

My guess is that this isn't the case. People know that what they're doing
isn't ethical, but they are doing it nevertheless because it gives them money,
power, status, their desired partner etc. You can't prevent that by teaching
them about ethics.

~~~
closeparen
One can also understand that _you think_ certain practices are unethical, and
disagree.

~~~
luckylion
Sure, I'm not claiming to be an authority on ethics here. It's just my
experience that people aren't unsure of what's ethical and what's not, they
just ignore their knowledge about ethics because it gets them what they want.
That cannot be solved by making them more aware of ethics - they already are
aware. Telling a pyromaniac about the dangers of accidentally setting a
building on fire won't make him not start fires.

~~~
closeparen
It is not hard to find proprietary software developers who routinely query
user data for debugging and product analytics. I’ll posit that almost none of
them find this inherently unethical, though they probably understand that
Stallman does.

There are of course some bright lines, like looking up people you personally
know, which norms and security auditing heavily deter. But the general
concept? Not at all. The HN consensus is not the industry consensus.

I mean look at the Hadoop community. What do you think is in those warehouses?
The weather? No. Records of user interactions.

