If you listen to RMS’ talks, arguably this is a feature, not a bug.
Most people pick up on the idea of freedom as in liberty with OSS: that you should be able to amend software at will. Strangely there are limits in his mind (at one talk I attended he insisted he didn’t care about being able to amend the software in his microwave, so didn’t care if it was Free or not).
However when asked about how programmers should make a living, his economic argument is that we should be paid for our hours, not for our software. In his telling, the right economic model is not the author who writes something once and is paid forever by everyone who wants to consume that “art”, but more like the trading crafter who makes and sells things on an on-going basis.
In support of that model, the “devaluation” of software, has meant we have a planet running on it that would not have been possible if every library and application on ever machine had cost $100-$500 each. The advances in scientific and medical research powered by that software driven World would not have been achieved yet, but neither would the damage caused by social media and adtech.
I’m not sure which side of the fence I sit on. I’ve had a good career being paid to write software because of its growing influence in the World, which likely would have stalled if OSS didn’t exist. But sure, I like the idea of spending a year writing something and living the rest of my life off the proceeds, like most people would.
The return to 90's style licenses kind of makes the point of everyone realizing someone has to put into the money, capitalism doesn't work with pull requests to upstream.
That part sounds pretty wonderful, but it also means you were paying through the teeth for everyone else’s software, too.
There are still plenty of small shops making a nice software living today. I don’t have the nerve to do it myself, though.
No one ever talks about how OSS literally devalued software, which resulted in the best hackers being forced to take corporate jobs.
If you listen to RMS’ talks, arguably this is a feature, not a bug.
Most people pick up on the idea of freedom as in liberty with OSS: that you should be able to amend software at will. Strangely there are limits in his mind (at one talk I attended he insisted he didn’t care about being able to amend the software in his microwave, so didn’t care if it was Free or not).
However when asked about how programmers should make a living, his economic argument is that we should be paid for our hours, not for our software. In his telling, the right economic model is not the author who writes something once and is paid forever by everyone who wants to consume that “art”, but more like the trading crafter who makes and sells things on an on-going basis.
In support of that model, the “devaluation” of software, has meant we have a planet running on it that would not have been possible if every library and application on ever machine had cost $100-$500 each. The advances in scientific and medical research powered by that software driven World would not have been achieved yet, but neither would the damage caused by social media and adtech.
I’m not sure which side of the fence I sit on. I’ve had a good career being paid to write software because of its growing influence in the World, which likely would have stalled if OSS didn’t exist. But sure, I like the idea of spending a year writing something and living the rest of my life off the proceeds, like most people would.
The return to 90's style licenses kind of makes the point of everyone realizing someone has to put into the money, capitalism doesn't work with pull requests to upstream.