Comment by bawolff
2 years ago
I dont think that is what the person you were replying to is saying.
> I think the fallacy in your argument is that you're blaming contributors for noticing that they aren't being compensated for the work they've done, rather than blaming others for using that work without giving anything in return.
Is anyone being forced to work on open source software? Unlike low wage jobs, where you could be forced in order to pay bills, eat, nobody is forcing anyone to work on open source ventures.
Just because you do something useful does not mean you are inherently entitled to compensation in the form you want.
If you are being forced to do something against your will that is bad. If it is some hobby you happen to like doing that is totally ok.
> The solution is to organize labor into a unified front so that exploitation can no longer happen.
Lol. What type of leverage do you think open source devs have to form a union? Open source in many ways is designed to remove all economic leverage from source code. Its not a bug its a feature.
Edit 2: you're right, I read the parent comment backwards. They're saying that people using open source code have no right to place demands on contributors. This is a teachable moment for me, so I'll leave my thought process below, even though it doesn't apply now.
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If I follow your logic, then you're saying that there's no economic incentive to work on open source software, since it's not compensated financially. Which seems to create a paradox:
A) Capitalism doesn't apply to open source software because there's no exchange of capital for labor
B) Capitalism applies to open source software because it generates billions of dollars of revenue for people and corporations
It sounds like the only rational act under capitalism is to not work on open source software, since the work is not compensated.
Meaning that any solution we come up with will act outside of capitalism.
Can you present a solution that works within capitalism to fund open source software?
Edit: I forgot to mention that the primary power of organized labor is to withhold labor until compensated. For open source, that might look like deciding as programmers to withhold all of our contributions until we solve this. Since we won't do that, we're all scabs supporting the status quo.
To put it in the broader context (outside of what the start of this thread was) - i view it similar to painting.
Do some people get rich selling paintings, sure some do. Do most people? absolutely not. Is that a problem, i don't particularly think so.
People paint for a variety of reasons, some ecconomic, but most not. Similarly people contribute to open source for a variety of reasons, some ecconomic some not.
> It sounds like the only rational act under capitalism is to not work on open source software, since the work is not compensated.
Broadly stated, i agree with this. Unless you have some specific angle or business model, contributing to open source is a terrible way to get rich.
While it would be nice if my contributions made me a millionaire, i don't see it as a fundamental injustice that they don't. I knew that going in and did it anyways. If i wanted big bucks i would be optimizing my life to work at FAANG and that has its own set of trade offs.
Ok that's actually very insightful, comparing open source to art.
I got triggered (saw what I wanted to see instead of what was there) because I've been involved with so many projects that failed (say 90+%) that my average hourly "wage" probably comes out to $3/hr over my lifetime. While that's a decent wage in many parts of the world, where I live it means struggle and destitution as a starving artist. "Let them eat cake" comes to mind, because I've never had the baseline stability needed to make the contributions in my heart. So I didn't, I just spent all the years of my adult life working towards other people's dreams, and what people see of me today is the shadow left behind of someone who lost dozens of bets in a row with little to show for it.
I'm concerned that AI encroaching on the last viable artistic endeavors like painting, playing music, writing (and now designing software!) could grind us under the heal of the status quo even harder. Yet people make $100+/hr working at FAANG by standing on the achievements of open source while giving almost nothing back.
I don't see a way out of this, so without some kind of human intervention, we have maybe 10 years left before the sky falls. That could be the start of the New Age (heaven on Earth) or it could be the total subjugation of humanity beneath technology (a living hell). Unfortunately the powers that be have chosen the second route, whether they are consciously aware of it or not.
Is there anything we can do to balance the scales? All I can think of is to withhold our labor. But when AI automates that, there truly will be no recourse. The value of labor will fall towards zero and we could be looking at a luddite revolution where people sabotage tech in a misguided attempt to save themselves. When we could have planned for that eventuality and chosen something like UBI instead.
It breaks my heart, but my heart is already broken. I guess that's why I have moved to magical thinking through stuff like meditation in an effort to manifest the world that might have been. An unsatisfiable ego-driven tech can only be defeated by a conscious soul-driven love.
Like how does one contemplate zen as the world burns? That's what this problem of under-compensation hits on for me. It's maybe the central problem of our time, or at least my time. Separating me from the life I had envisioned. For me, more tech has merely resulted in more suffering at the hands of it.