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1. asm & tamsyn & forth, oh my! (millihertz@oldbytes.space)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Feb-2023 05:02:58 JST asm & tamsyn & forth, oh my!

   someone posted an "open source is broken" thing yesterday featuring the plight of the lead (only?) core-js developer... and all i could think was that the primary way in which open source is broken was intentional, and by design - it allows corporations, the very people who should be paying the upkeep, to freeload

   the thing about corporations is that if they're not required to pay for something, there's a legal case to be made that their fiduciary duty to their shareholders requires them not to. at least the Free Software movement required them to contribute back in kind - the Open Source movement was created to push back against that, and even now people buy into the corporate-shill message that putting even the tiniest barrier in the way of a corporation leeching off your work is somehow hostile to the entire intent and purpose of open source

   and yeah, the core-js dev totally should just down tools and leave. fuck every company depending on their work without paying for its upkeep.

   • golly josh darn (klardotsh@merveilles.town)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Feb-2023 05:04:40 JST golly josh darn

     in reply to

     @millihertz worst part, someone who is the caliber of dev it takes to build and maintain core-js as amazingly well as he has for all these years, is the exact caliber of dev who *should* be raking in the big bucks with corporate sponsorship, and instead the bonkers salaries go to folks figuring out how to extract a couple extra bucks of ad revenue in AdWords or whatever

     (this isn't to say both can't exist in, say for example Google's, org chart: the AdWords team could pay for core-js. sigh.)

     alcinnz repeated this.
   • Markus Brückner (namenlos@fem.social)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Feb-2023 05:04:47 JST Markus Brückner

     in reply to

     • golly josh darn

     @klardotsh @millihertz while I do agree with you on the part of Open Source needing better finding, I did think a multiple points during the read: that is not a good financial decisions. Skipping jobs to work on core-js in the hood of funding trickling in? That has probably never worked. Not advertising your work on the product in the hope that a deep-down, unseen base lib will shine on its own? Also a bit naive.

   • asm & tamsyn & forth, oh my! (millihertz@oldbytes.space)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Feb-2023 05:05:12 JST asm & tamsyn & forth, oh my!

     in reply to

     • golly josh darn
     • Markus Brückner

     @namenlos @klardotsh people who work on software for the public good shouldn't need to be good at making financial decisions. failing to accrue money in a capitalist society is not a moral failing, no matter how loudly that society insists otherwise

     alcinnz repeated this.
   • Markus Brückner (namenlos@fem.social)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Feb-2023 05:05:42 JST Markus Brückner

     in reply to

     • golly josh darn

     @millihertz @klardotsh at which point do people write software for the public good? Starting at the first line of code? If they have at least 1000 users? Don't get me wrong: I'd love to live on a society where we all could just follow our passions. But I don't see how that could work because some people's passions are not compatible with other's.