
Did capitalism hack the open-source model? - jp_42
https://medium.com/@john.pete01/did-capitalism-hack-the-open-source-model-cf4f6278c17a
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danShumway
I would be a lot more sympathetic to articles like this if they didn't all end
with, "and therefore we should all just move back to proprietary licenses."

> _With the open-source model, the breach is the absence of a business model —
> not the fact that it is free, but rather, the absence of rules._

On the contrary, literally the whole point of the free software movement was
to have an absence of rules. The "not needing to pay money" part was a side
effect; an optional side effect that developers were _encouraged_ to subvert.

People can argue that the lack of rules is a problem, but it's important to
recognize that when they say things like this, they aren't saying, "Open
Source has some flaws we need to fix." They're saying, "Open Source
fundamentally doesn't work, and we should abandon it."

Put aside the complaints about Google and DRM, and the main gist of this
article is arguing that the "patch" for Open Source is to get rid of forking.

~~~
maze-le
>> Put aside the complaints about Google and DRM, and the main gist of this
article is arguing that the "patch" for Open Source is to get rid of forking.

Well, that kind of is the "open" part of "open source". If you are free to
redistribute code, it implies that you are free to fork. I wonder why the
author doesn't push for more restrictive licensing models (like GPL) instead?

~~~
danShumway
The ironic part is that the one of the reasons this article was written in the
first place was because the author tried to build a product off of Chromium
and couldn't -- because modern Chrome relies on proprietary DRM modules that
can't be forked.

And the takeaway they took away from that was, "authors should have _more_
control over what other people do with their code."?

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LifeLiverTransp
I look at another part of society, where the hacking and getting hacked has a
long tradition- lawyers and the law. And money subverts them all. In the long
run. So lets look at yet another part of society- our own bodys. How does the
body detect intruders, or even prevent theire entrance?

1) Provide no interface for hacking. Our stomaches and colons are our main
energy interface - they regenerate at a increddible rate. Slimy, colon cells,
they live fast, they die fast, holding on to them is near impossible.

2) Have a pre-warn system for getting hacked. If your sensory apparatus
deteriorates, go in full reverse on all operations.

3) A general good feature to have - the ability to undo damage, by doing a
full reset to a previously working state. Good in software development, good
for a society, its a nice last line of defense, that the comon citizen can
veto-vote direct democratic.

4) Divide and Conquer: Prevent accumulations of power, by allowing monopolies
to be legally usurped. Can proof your employer is in a cartel/monopoly?
Congratualations, you are allowed to march out with x% of the company into a
seperate company.

5)Dont be a static target. A passive defense is weakness, as it gives the
attacker infinite attempts. If attacked, and the attack is proofable, dissolve
the attacker, integrate his strengths into the defenses.

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whenchamenia
Most open source models (bsd, gpl2, mit, etc.) were meant to harness
capitolism, and they seem to have done rather well with a few glaring
exceptions like android. Arguing to abandon it because its not the communist
utopia promised by literally nobody is asinine.

~~~
hmschreck
When we talked a decade ago about "when open source wins", we were really
excited for it. Now that it's happened, some people are freaking out. This is
what winning looks like, though. This was the plan all along.

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icebraining
I'm sorry, but this article just seems to muddle the issues, based on some
misguided idea that open source was a method for plucky independent developers
to profit from the code paid by big corporations (in this case, Chromium)
while being immune from their power.

The whole premise that "capitalism hacked open-source" is itself ahistorical:
if anything, open-source was a creation of capitalism, by people who disliked
that Free Software had ethical implications, and wanted a term that would
strip those and make it "corporation friendly".

Does Google and other big corps profit off open source developers? No shit;
that was the point.

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kyleperik
I see open source and capitalism as very similar ideas. It really is summed up
in the absence of rules. And I like the analogy from the article

> empty spaces do not remain vacant for a very long time

But this seems to be impling that we _need_ rules otherwise they'll be taken
up by greedy companies. I think this is underestimating the role of the
individual, who ultimately is the one who decides who gets business.

Maybe instead of being "Google addicts" but expecting the everything to be
balanced, maybe we should be more conscious and intentional about who gets
_our_ business.

