Conversation

Notices

1. Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 04:34:48 JST Ben Ramsey

   Nothing will destroy Open Source quicker than treating all the devs who work on open source software as suppliers in a supply chain.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 04:39:05 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     @ramsey I kindly request that any corporations building upon my work puts developer-hours into at least proofreading it! I develop my software opensource specifically so you can do that, so please follow through!

     Also I'd ask corporations to pass on the software freedom I granted them forward to their users, but that's another matter...

   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 05:52:01 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @alcinnz I understand the desire to make their contributions copyleft. Unfortunately, a lot of organizations have policies against the use of copylefted software, so even if they don’t directly use your library, because of the dependency chain, they might not be able to use other libraries that depend on your library. As the developer, you have to consider your goals and these trade-offs.

     The older I get, the more appealing the GPL becomes to me.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Mark Atwood (mark@chatter.quux.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:10:36 JST Mark Atwood

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @ramsey @alcinnz I'm inclined to encourage that appeal to the GPL. Then the companies with a clue will outcompete the ones who hold onto that fear.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Charles U. Farley (freakazoid@retro.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:20:34 JST Charles U. Farley

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @ramsey I imagine policies against copyleft software would evaporate pretty quickly if a lot fewer developers were willing to donate their free labor toward software that corporations could freely modify and redistribute or sell without having to share the source code for their modifications.

     @alcinnz

   • flabberghaster (flabberghaster@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:20:50 JST flabberghaster

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @ramsey @alcinnz for me, I release all NY stuff on GPL licenses specifically because I don't want people taking my hard work, folding it into their own thing, selling it, and not contributing back. If companies have policies against copyleft, that's their problem.

     I think we should all use copyleft licenses by default, if we really care about substantive freedom for all rather than just the freedom to profit for free off donated work.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:37:09 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @flabberghaster @ramsey @alcinnz I agree with this take so deeply. Not a lot of software engineers I talk to seem to be in a position to care about this or feel this way. Thank you for saying it.

     I personally have felt, at least thus far in my career, overwhelming incentive to work on copyrightable, private codebases. For work. #Capitalism. Perhaps that is why so few comparatively seem to act upon this idea.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:38:14 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @flabberghaster @ramsey @alcinnz One day I hope to be in a position career-wise and financially to make all my code contributions #Copyleft.

     I think more people thinking this way would lead to a golden age of software development. #ImagineTheEndOfCapitalism

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • flabberghaster (flabberghaster@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:44:24 JST flabberghaster

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @ramsey @alcinnz that's legit. To be fair, most of the stuff I release is not that useful to other people, and most of the code I write is closed source internal to my company. So it's easy for me to say, since i'm not trying to get people to buy my open source thing and make a living on it.

     But, I do think copyleft is far better, all else being equal, so when I do release stuff, even though no one looks at it, I do it out of principle.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:44:30 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @flabberghaster @Jdreben @ramsey I would say, as much as I love advocating for freesoftware I don't believe every internal tool should be published.

     If anything, the opposite. There's so many projects to dig through for dependencies, we don't need to throw projects not intended for general use onto the pile!

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:52:18 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @flabberghaster @ramsey Work needs to be put into floating the best solutions to the top, which from everything I read & experience is a bigger problem for how corporates use opensource than how hobbyists do...

     Computers don't magically do this for us!

   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:52:19 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @alcinnz @flabberghaster @ramsey
     I think I feel more sadness / frustration about all the repeatedly implemented closed source solutions of the same problems that are surely out there and NOT available on the internet, than I do about having too many homegrown but publicly available solutions.

   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 06:52:21 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @alcinnz @flabberghaster @ramsey That’s an interesting point and I hear you. Ultimately the best solution(s) will win if all are made available though right? Idk that’s my response to that point. I’d rather have everything and it be messy than neat and incomplete.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:00:11 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @alcinnz @flabberghaster This already exists in several forms. I get donations through GitHub Sponsors, and I also earn a small amount from Tidelift. It amounts to about $200 a month, total, so I can’t live on it, which is why I have a day job, but I don’t do open source development for them.

   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:00:12 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @alcinnz @flabberghaster @ramsey Maybe we need like a Patreon / Mastodon combo of community / user based financial support for Open Source projects? 🤔

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:00:13 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @alcinnz @flabberghaster @ramsey wow yeah that’s a good point.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:01:21 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @flabberghaster @ramsey I'll be looking into funding solutions this year, for a project of mine.

     I have heard of TideLift.

     Its a near-certainty though that I'd receive less money for the project than I'd want to spend, especially considering how many others are in the same boat!

   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:02:33 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @alcinnz @flabberghaster The incentives for the hobbyists working on major open source projects are varied, but they’re rarely financially motivated (at least when starting out).

   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:02:34 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @ramsey @alcinnz @flabberghaster Right. It’s a crazy misalignment of incentives. I don’t see a clean economic model for open source though so I see how it has come to be this way. Many of those hobbyists have full time jobs working on closed source that makes their ‘hobby’ possible.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:02:35 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @alcinnz @flabberghaster A lot of open source software is written by hobbyists who do it in their spare time, rather than by the companies who freely use and depend on the work of those hobbyists.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:04:43 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @alcinnz @flabberghaster @ramsey #TideLift is a great name, I had not heard of that service yet.

     Hopefully 2023 will be a good year for donating to open source contributors. A rising tide for #OSS would lift all of us into a more technological sophisticated world.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:06:56 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @flabberghaster @ramsey Also it's worth pointing out the role package repos play: They collect quality projects making them easy to install via a corresponding "package manager".

     Not that every package repo holds themselves to this role, some popular ones (e.g. NPM) quite the opposite!

   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:15:40 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @alcinnz @Jdreben @flabberghaster The main reason I create open source software is because I enjoy seeing others use and benefit from something I've created. I suspect other open source maintainers have similar sentiments, so package repos provide a distribution channel that helps satisfy that goal.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:22:14 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @ramsey @alcinnz @flabberghaster A package repo that charges Fortune 500 and other companies with > some millions of ARR to pay based on their usage of #FOSS.

     Open source developers should be paid by companies regardless of if they are hired by them, if they are building the software they are using

     Open source is the backbone of modern capitalism. Something like this is the only truly fair way open source can be used by for profit companies.

   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:22:33 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @flabberghaster @ramsey @alcinnz Yes! I LOVE this business model.

   • flabberghaster (flabberghaster@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:22:34 JST flabberghaster

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @ramsey @alcinnz Lots of companies do this; usually they sell support for existing FOSS projects, or you pay them to add something to a FOSS project. Rather than paying someone to implement some code for you, you pay them to help fix things with code that already exists.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Matt "msw" Wilson (msw@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:22:46 JST Matt "msw" Wilson

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @ramsey @alcinnz I think the list of companies that have "absolutely no" policies that prohibit use of copyleft licensed software is shorter than many believe.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:25:53 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • Matt "msw" Wilson

     @msw @alcinnz It must be a big enough list that Snyk (and others) provide services for license scanning and compliance. https://snyk.io/product/open-source-security-management/license-compliance/

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Matt "msw" Wilson (msw@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:30:46 JST Matt "msw" Wilson

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • Mark Atwood

     @mark @ramsey @alcinnz even AWS releases new works under GPLv2 license from time to time. ;-)

     https://github.com/aws/clock-bound/tree/main/clock-bound-d

   • Matt "msw" Wilson (msw@mstdn.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:31:55 JST Matt "msw" Wilson

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane

     @ramsey @alcinnz in my personal opinion, there is a bit of a self-fulfilling cycle when it comes to the license compliance industrial complex.

   • Shawn Webb (lattera@bsd.network)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:39:25 JST Shawn Webb

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @flabberghaster @ramsey @alcinnz to me, I have the exact opposite experience. The older I get, the more I appreciate having my code used and not stifling innovation.

     We're seeing more and more companies contribute back to permissively licensed codebases, since it's in their best interest to do so.

     Juniper learned this lesson the hard way, and paved the ideological way that countless other companies follow: keep ONLY the money-making bits as proprietary and open source everything else.

     Open sourcing as much as possible enables the community to support their work and eases long-term maintenance burden, lessoning differences between upstream and downstream.

     Netflix, Intel, Dell, Apple, Cisco, NetApp, Chelsio Communications, Mellanox, just to name a few.

     It used to be that companies would not open source their work, but that's certainly not as common today as it used to be. Yet the perception that it is still common persists.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Abandoned (doctormo@fosstodon.org)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:39:48 JST Abandoned

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @alcinnz @flabberghaster @Jdreben @ramsey

     You have hit upon on of the "When is something Free Software but not Open Source"

     Answer: "When it is private"

     Because Free Software is concerned with the user's freedom, not whether is is published at all.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:41:50 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • Shawn Webb
     • flabberghaster

     @lattera @flabberghaster @ramsey My complaint is perhaps a bit different than your describing.

     I'm objecting to it being popular to build proprietary software upon opensource! I want it so that anyone can request to see the source code they run on their computer, and I want to minimize the need for servers!

   • flabberghaster (flabberghaster@mas.to)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:47:57 JST flabberghaster

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • Shawn Webb

     @lattera @ramsey @alcinnz In my ideal world there would be no companies. Why are companies who we assume will "Innovate"? Innovate what, for whom? I don't consider a company making a product that sells better to be that high of a goal for me. What I want to foster is people being a able to make use of things, and to do that I want to keep things from getting locked away in a vault. If that makes it harder for Ratheon to use it in a better missile or Google to automate someone's job away? Good.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • グレェ「grey」 (byterhymer@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:53:02 JST グレェ「grey」

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben there's https://liberapay.com/

     Albeit, since creating an account, I haven't received any donations, so I can't confirm it functions as intended, but: it seems as if it has the intention to be similar to Patreon, but well, open source and operated as a non-profit which purportedly does not take any fees. @alcinnz @flabberghaster @ramsey

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:53:37 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • グレェ「grey」
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @byterhymer @Jdreben @flabberghaster @ramsey I get some pocketchange from LiberaPay...

   • Shawn Webb (lattera@bsd.network)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 07:57:35 JST Shawn Webb

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster

     @flabberghaster @ramsey @alcinnz my wife is grateful for having food on the table.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 08:00:48 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • Shawn Webb
     • flabberghaster

     @lattera @flabberghaster @ramsey Yeah, on its own doing away with corporations would be harmful...

     We'd need to first figure out how to do away with our reliance on them!

   • グレェ「grey」 (byterhymer@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 08:17:56 JST グレェ「grey」

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • Shawn Webb
     • flabberghaster

     @flabberghaster Typo: it's "Raytheon" not "Ratheon".

     I think one of the real challenges is: businesses seem, intrinsically evil most of the time?

     Also see: Edwin Armstrong, FM radio inventor, subverted by RCA bribing (aka "lobbying") the FCC to deign his radios illegal.

     Armstrong fought them in court, lost all his money in doing so, his wife left him, he committed suicide.

     Once his patents expired? RCA started making FM radios.

     No movies on that, though. ;( @lattera @ramsey @alcinnz

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Shawn Webb (lattera@bsd.network)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Jan-2023 08:25:50 JST Shawn Webb

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • グレェ「grey」
     • flabberghaster

     @byterhymer @flabberghaster @ramsey @alcinnz it's dangerous to make broad judgements on a few bad actors.

     I don't think any of the work I've done in my career even has the potential of harm, and that's speaking of someone who spent some time working in the NSA's backyard.

   • Adrian Cochrane (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 04:14:32 JST Adrian Cochrane

     in reply to

     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:
     • Lykso

     @lykso @Jdreben @ramsey @flabberghaster I'd like that!

     Personally I'd also advocate for enough of a UBI that anyone can afford to put time into what art, software, activities, or whatever they value. And so people can choose whichever of these they want to fund to become even better!

   • Lykso (lykso@tiny.tilde.website)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 04:14:38 JST Lykso

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @Jdreben @ramsey @alcinnz @flabberghaster Might be a bit of a hot take, but regarding the economics: IMO, open source and libre software ought to be publicly funded, as it is a public good. Reallocate government budgets away from proprietary stuff from the likes of Google and Microsoft and put it toward developing the digital commons.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 04:18:40 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • Lykso

     @lykso @ramsey @alcinnz @flabberghaster I strongly agree with this take. The US could spend idk maybe some of its enormous defense budget on it?

   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 04:52:19 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • Charles U. Farley
     • flabberghaster
     • Lykso

     @freakazoid @lykso @ramsey @alcinnz @flabberghaster That's my opinion on the state of things in the US as well. Sadly. Perhaps electing younger and more tech aware representatives will one day change that.

     For now, love to see GDPR and right to repair and USB-C and such actually fought for in the EU.

   • Charles U. Farley (freakazoid@retro.social)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 04:52:20 JST Charles U. Farley

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:
     • Lykso

     @Jdreben
     @lykso
     It's certainly not going to happen in a country with as powerful a commercial software industry as the US has. Or if it did the intent would probably be to destroy copyleft.

     @ramsey @alcinnz @flabberghaster

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Ben Ramsey (ramsey@phpc.social)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 06:56:15 JST Ben Ramsey

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:
     • Lykso

     @Jdreben @alcinnz @lykso @flabberghaster This. A UBI would be better than putting money into open source software. If they directly funded OSS, they’d have to figure out who and what they intend to fund. UBI would leave individuals free to take some risks and build things that matter to them.

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • James Dreben :mw: (jdreben@mastodon.world)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 06:56:16 JST James Dreben :mw:

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • Lykso

     @alcinnz @lykso @ramsey @flabberghaster That'd be a wonderful thing. #ImagineTheEndOfCapitalism

     Adrian Cochrane repeated this.
   • Lykso (lykso@tiny.tilde.website)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Jan-2023 07:12:46 JST Lykso

     in reply to

     • Adrian Cochrane
     • flabberghaster
     • James Dreben :mw:

     @ramsey @Jdreben @alcinnz @flabberghaster I agree. A UBI seems like it'd be much harder to make happen politically, though. OTOH, maybe that's exactly the sort of "big, hairy, audacious goal" for which the present moment calls.