Comment by sdevonoes
6 days ago
There are software components out there that are the backbone of our industry, and they are not governed by multibillion dollar companies. Linux, postgres, HTTP, TCP/IP, qemu,…
It’s not that anthropic/google/openai/etc are unavoidable
> they are not governed by multibillion dollar companies
Every tech you mentioned is absolutely governed by multibillion dollar companies. Something like 75-85% of OSS code is contributed by employees doing their day job. Most Linux and Postgres contributions come from those same employees. HTTP and TCP/IP are managed by standard bodies and industry working groups that, you guessed it, are governed by multibillion dollar companies. Red Hat and IBM are responsible for 40-60% of contributions to Qemu.
The way I understood op is that we don't necessarily have to pay to use linux or postgres (when self hosting, for example). But we have to pay to use claude code... which sucks big time (also, open source models are behind private models)
Claude Code isn't OSS, so I fail to see the connection. You're paying for compute, not access to code. I'm personally more than happy to pay for access to that compute.
The usual model for OSS projects is that initially they are written for free. Then an inner circle forms and exploits the second generation of idealists who write entire large features without ever getting the same rights.
Some of the inner circle move to corporations to increase their power and are joined by corporate developers (sometimes their bosses) to take over the project.
A lot of corporate OSS development are entirely unnecessary rewrites or simple things like release management. So I'd put the number of useful code by employees much lower.
But governed, hell yeah, I agree. The corporations crack the whip and oppress real contributors.
This is a nice fantasy, but that's all it is. Most of the code used by corporations is also mostly contributed to by other corporations. Contributions by volunteers is the exception for most of the projects in this context. I also don't think this is a bad thing.