- cross-posted to:
- opensource@lemmit.online
- opensource@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- opensource@lemmit.online
- opensource@lemmy.ml
I’ve always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let’s change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?
You must log in or register to comment.
The real outrage is big tech clouds like amazon taking open source software for free and bundling it up in AWS services that cost a lot of money.
If they would contribute back to the authors, they would become rich, but of course not…
AWS isn’t charging for the software, they’re charging to let you run stuff on their hardware
If that were solely true, there would be a lot more competition in the field right now. Amazon, (and to a much lesser extent the other 2 big names, GCP and Azure) are so massive not because they have a lot of power (plenty of other companies like digital ocean or OVM have plenty of scaling power too)— but because the integrations between their products are so seamless. Most of that functionality has a foundation in FOSS software that they’ve built on top of.
Which, by itself, is fine. But their contributions to open source are very one-handed and pale in comparison to how much they benefit out of it.
Hell, my company is no different. They allocate one day out of the year as “open source day” where devs can contribute back to open source projects on company time. But it must be something we already use.
No personal development. No non-essential libraries.
We make literally millions off of these libraries and we don’t even contribute monetarily.
If these companies gave even 0.01% of their revenue to these essential libraries, they’d never even have to ask for money.
I think their point (may be wrong) is that none of this high powered software would exist without the goodness of strangers. Tbf it probably wouldn’t look like this without business / on the clock contributing either
True, but AWS and the cloud in general likely would’ve never evolved without top notch free software, i.e. Linux, because the cost would’ve been prohibitive. I am on a team that runs a small public cloud and there are many systems needed to support the cloud, it’s not just the instances/VMs.
it’s not only clouds, everyone uses open source and like whole secure WWW etc. is using openssl, every site uses some kind of open source js library, should they all go proprietary because they don’t pay?
While I applaud compensating FOSS developers, there’s a devil in the details: all software stands on the shoulders of many giants. The nature of software, and software users, means that most money is going to go to front-end developers, regardless of effort. They, in turn, would have to rigorously re-distribute most of that money to the developers of the great many many libraries and frameworks that their software depends on. I would argue that it is practically impossible for this trickle-down to happen fairly, which would result in developers of deep, indirect dependencies used by everyone being ignored. Throw a shitty, low-effort GUI on restic, and you’d end up with all the donations. If you’re ethical, you’d give 99 cents for every dollar to the restic devs; how likely is that? An added wrinkle is that people are really bad about estimating the relative worth of their efforts; even if everyone in the stack is ethical, how do you estimate the relative value of your effort against the effort of the database binding library you use? How much of your donations do you give to each developer of the 40 libraries you directly import?
Another issue I personally have is that compensation invites obligation. It breaks the itch-scratching foundation of FOSS.
Finally, I think introducing money into FOSS is a virus that ultimately destroys the only functioning communism in the world. It changes developer behavior, or at least introduces perverse incentives, in undesireable ways. I’d rather end-users contribute in whatever way they can: well-written bug reports, PRs that fix spelling in docs, wiki “how-to” contributions, code contributions. From each, according to ability. That’s what keeps FOSS running, and that’s the spirit of FOSS.
Now, I’m fully in favor of for-profit companies funding and supporting projects. They’re making money off FOSS, and should roll that down. All of the same trickle-down issues apply, and certainly it introduces the same perverse incentives, but greed should have a cost, and all for-profit companies are by definition engines of greed.
telegram mega vivaldi spotify
A whole lot of words follow but if fucking Spotify is on your list of free software, all that indicates to me is that you’ve put a whole lot of work into failing to understand the concept of free software.
User @QuazarOmega already pointed this out, it depends on the definition of free, of which I’m positive the majority of my list complies with. Moreover, I did apologise for including Spotify, and offer alternatives:
“Despite their free version forcing ads, the paid version is too convenient, sorry. However, their UXD has become more annoying so I’m not sure how long I’ll stick… If cross platform functionality isn’t a big deal for you then consider Tidal which pays artists significantly more [5], or BeatSense for simple YouTube playlists and listening together.”If there are better alternatives—to anything really—please share them instead.
Regarding Vivaldi: Why isn’t Vivaldi browser open-source?
Lastly, about Mega and Telegram, I added “breaks rule 3” to their listing. Mega is just remarkably convenient too, and unless the populace suddenly turns geek and they find out about the Matrix protocol, I’d prefer they use Telegram en masse instead of WhatsApp.I don’t really give a damn about why the developers of Vivaldi (and the others) chose not release it as free software. They made that choice long ago and have stuck with it. That’s fine. It means I have no interest in their product, but to me it also means that discussion about it is out of place in an article with “free software” literally in the title in a forum called “linux” where the FSF definition of freedom should prevail.
I don’t really give a damn about why
That’s a slippery slope into bigotry, dogma. It should be possible to understand another perspective without necessarily agreeing with it. Unwillingness to listen limits the pathways to finding solutions.
As aforementioned, I think the majority of the software listed does not clash with the FSF definition of freedom. Unless I started shilling Zuckerberg products I don’t think it detracts from the point I’m trying to make.
sophistry
A whole lot of words follow but if fucking Spotify is on your list of free software, all that indicates to me is that you’ve put a whole lot of work into failing to understand the concept of free software.
That’s a bit harsh. I would agree with you that they seem to be pretty ignorant of the finer points of free software, like the difference between free-as-in-beer software, free-as-in-freedom software, and so-called “open source” software. But to be fair, the article was more about economics than about software, and I mostly agreed with a number of their arguments.
I advocate for that since years. We need to normalize to pay for OSS. The biggest issue I see is not that people are unwilling to pay (donate) for the software they use daily, but the the payment itself is to complicated. There is not “the one” app store for OSS that every OS uses that makes donations easy. Additionally taking care of taxes for donations is too much of a burden, so the app store needs to handle that as well. And voila: You have the Apple App store or Android Play store.
If taxes are a concern then I think opencollective.com is the recommended platform:
“Open Collective is a legal and financial toolbox for grassroots groups. It’s a fundraising + legal status + money management platform for your community. What do you want to do?”It’s quite sad to see reasonably popular apps with virtually no funding. I feel like highlighting the case of rssguard, probably one of the most popular apps in its category, with patreon, liberapay, and offering to prioritize bugs and suggestions from donors… barely 5€ per month.
Oh, I almost forgot, in these topics there should be a mandatory mention of core-js case.
The article does indirectly mention core-js within source “31. b. Explain xkcd: 2347: Dependency.”
But yeah, the status-quo is quite sad indeed.
I only skimmed your article, but so far I like what I am reading, and how you dovetail it into a discussion about UBI and so on.
But one quick criticism: if I were you I would try to get a bit more well-versed on the difference between “free-as-in-free-beer” software, “free-as-in-freedom” software, and “open source” software. There are lots of articles about this, especially at the The Free Software Foundation. But in short:
- Free as in “free beer”: you can use the software without paying for it. They are usually making money off of you some other way, by charging certain users fees, by collecting and re-selling your private data, selling ads, or all of the above.
- “Open source”: means the source code is available and you might even be able to contribute to it, but the maintainers reserve the right to distribute modified builds of the “open source” version that can make money off you the same way “free beer” software does. It is a good way for large companies to get free work done for them (bug fixes, feature requests) from their technically literate users.
- Free as in “freedom”: the software license guarantees by law that users of the software must have access to the exact source code of the build of the software that they are using (without modification) regardless of whether or not you charge money for it so that your end users have the freedom to inspect whether the code is honest. It also guarantees that you have the freedom modify the source code however you please, but the license contract requires that you grant the same freedom to everyone else who is using your modified copy of the source code. “Free as in freedom” software protects the freedom (as in civil liberties) of anyone who uses it, open source does not.
Constructive criticism is invaluable, so thank you. This point has been brought up multiple times by now, therefore I’m thinking of a way to incorporate it into the text. For starters a link to this Lemmy thread has already been included.
I added a footnote on top and added your comment to the sources because I’m low on time to write a new paragraph properly just this minute.
Every year I allocate 100.- (around 100$) to share between every geeky project I want to support.
My list includes: Lemmy, Memmy, Joplin, Wikipedia, Organic Maps, Gnome, Thunderbird, Firefox, peertube)
I could give more, but I could give less.
I’m also trying to support the Linux Experiment with Patreon.
I do the same thing around xmas
I heard Organic Maps was ~pulling some shit.~
Edit: eh, idk if that’s accurate
Well, from reading the linked post it seems inaccurate.
Personally I’ve never used any link in Organic Maps or any advertising.
But thanks for making me aware of that controversy 😇
€0.00—Aurora Store. Breaks rule 4. €0.00—F-Droid. Breaks rule 4.
Rule 4: No association with or reference to crypto“currencies” because these are greed incentivizing pyramid schemes.
They… They are app stores.
Aurora is just a reskin of fdroid, they use the same reposWhat’s the association, the fact that they let you install apps related to it? Bruh.Aurora isn’t a reskinned F-Droid and neiter does it use the same repositories. It’s a client for the Google Play Store, but one that doesn’t require an account or Google Services. And that’s not what F-Droid is.
To clarify , there is an aurora client for f-droid. https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/auroradroid
The OP mentions aurora store by name so they are probably not talking about the f-droid wrapper. Also if f-droid breaks rule 4 AuroraDroid almost certainly does.
It’s dead
Yeah, my bad, I confused it with aurora droid. In any case, I still don’t get why they break rule 4.
I’d expected that rule to eliminate apps like Brave (BAT), Signal (MobileCoin), Telegram (TON), etc…
Feels weird to rule out a tool because the team accepts donations via cryptocurrency when the tool itself (and presumably other tools by that same developer) has no links to crypto. Obviously this assumes that they accept donations via other means; if not then I can totally understand not wanting to use crypto to donate.
It’s funny to see someone say “I didn’t send them a donation through PayPal, a crypto exchange, because they accept donations via crypto and I’m morally opposed to crypto.”
Rule 4: No association with or reference to crypto“currencies” because these are greed incentivizing pyramid schemes.
Aurora accepts cryptocurrencies as donations. And F-Droid also did but apparently its on hold.
I only just became aware of this. The essay has been corrected, and donated to F-Droid.
The thing is
- its a shame that enthusiasts dont donate. How?
- the biggest problem is normies using FOSS and never donating a cent
deleted by creator
normies using foss and not donating is better than normies not using foss and not donating imo
It may remove the “weakest link in the chain” and does not support surveillance capitalist companies. It also makes the software more known.
In the end the biggest cost is development, which stays the same.
I also have the feelig total normies dont annoy in forums or with bug reports / feature requests, like many Linux users do in some time of their evolution XD
”Better known as Windoze”
Stopped reading right there. Edgy 14 year old script kiddies can think whatever they want. I’m not interested.
The overall post isn’t that bad, though. But the edginess and shit takes on Windows were very unnecessarry
There’s a deluge of impersonal, academic, dry sources of information out there. If I chose that road it would just feel like writing a thesis. It’s on my personal website, so I hope you can forgive a touch of personality. The levity is what keeps me going; there’s so much frustrating/disheartening news all around us and comedy is a crucial way of dealing with it.
Anyhow, I appreciate you taking the time to interact.
Dude just cited it as a joke
What a fragile person, literally makes a lightist jab at a known enemy of free software and now you’re pissing and shitting yourself.
But no, your billion dollar corporation needs defending from you. Get real.
I’m confused, as I progressed in the article I started seeing many proprietary applications being mentioned, with “free software” did you mean libre or gratis?
Ideally both. However, is “many” the correct word? How many proprietary applications did you count? And I’m not being ironic/sarcastic.
Not the majority, but that’s why I was confused as if they were put there by overlooking the license, anyway it makes sense now. I enjoyed the article btw!
Glad you enjoyed it, and your interaction is appreciated; I’m not immune to blunders so that’s why I asked.
deleted by creator
every little bit counts.
You bet it does: https://ncase.me/fireflies/
I should really create a list of websites too actually, but I think I’d be broke after donating to all of them.
I think thats quite unrelated as its about synchronisation not about “every bit counts”. Great website though
Yep. Fascinating read, completely unrelated.
@mexicancartel @anguo I don’t consider it unrelated at all: “What small-scale interaction will you make today, little firefly?”
Hence “every little bit counts.”I see it more like the opposite. Even if you made some difference in timings it still syncs. Even if “firefly you” didn’t exist, it makes no difference…
Donations to free software projects are pretty important. Since most of big ones are maintained by companies which has a partnership with foundations, lot of most free software projects (libraries, components, apps, etc) are maintained by small amount of volunteers, who paid everything for the project.
So, this not mean to make you rich, but at least having a coffee paid by some Lemmy user who uses your piece of software and wants to be grateful, makes you a bit more happy.
No, it’s not, and it’s not the argument the article is making. The article is arguing for developers receiving public supoprt financed by taxing corporation who are currently evading massive amounts of money.
This is not a case of “no one”, anyway. Throw a coffee if you can is already how this works. And it’s not just “a coffee”, plenty of openly available software has alternate revenue streams, support from corporate backers and other sustainability tools besides voluntary crowdsourcing. The OP is pondering a systemic solution, not a moral obligation based on capitalist conceptions of how much time is worth and charity.
Thank you! More people should do this. It may seem like $5 is nothing, but it’s actually great help. Even $1 helps out FOSS projects, as if even just 1% of the users of such projects donated $1 each month that’d be able to make a good income,
I do that for open-source videos games, I pay for the steam version to support the creators (Dwarf Fortress and Cataclysm : Dark Days Ahead for example). I’m totally fine with it, as long as it’s a one-time fee, no subscription bullshit.
DF isn’t FOSS, is it?
Oh you’re right, I don’t know why I assumed otherwise…
You lumped it in with CDDA so maybe you were falling into the “ASCII graphics = FOSS” trap.
It isEDIT: I’m wrong, I don’t know what I was thinking, I misremembered hearing something apparently. Thank you for the corrections
No.
The game’s code base is proprietary, and Adams has stated he has no plans to release it into the open-source domain, citing the risk of them going into financial trouble.
He explained he would consider releasing its source if he could not maintain it anymore, seeing different game developers taking it up. He says that he does not mind any modifications as long as he is not put at financial risk.
It should be noted though, that if people followed OP in actually financially contributing to FOSS projects, then DF would likely have been made FOSS by now. His main fear is not having financial stability if he open sources his game.
I don’t really buy that considering how passionate people are about that game. Just because it’s now free software doesn’t mean you have to accept contributions.
A copyleft license would prevent copycats and a trademark would distinguish the original from other compiled binaries a la Firefox or Rust.
Counterpoint, Thunderbird received millions in donations when it was on the brink of death.
At least when he retires it will finally be available that’s better than most games (esp. those built on nonfree game engines and assets)
Care to provide a source? Because a quick internet search says “no, it’s not”. But I know that’s been the case for like a decade. I don’t know if something has changed recently.
