> that someone else was foolish/idealistic enough to store on GitHub
That hits hard from my youth (and I'm only in my early 30s). Can we all please actively communicate to people that open source is not a business model, and any large firms promoting it are likely just looking for free work? Like communicate that in an empowering way?
Yeah, it would probably decimate open source contributions in the short term. But honestly, our field would be so much healthier overall in the long term.
I argued this point in the early 2000s when Richard Stallman was seen as a god in the software community and tried to convince everyone that this would be the new business model for software.
The same could be said about copyrights/patents (another point argued over the years). If you get rid of these protections for everyone, the only people that will end up on top are the large companies with lots of resources that can just take your ideas and not compensate you.
>> The same could be said about copyrights/patents (another point argued over the years). If you get rid of these protections for everyone, the only people that will end up on top are the large companies with lots of resources that can just take your ideas and not compensate you.
But isn't that exactly what we have now with the existing patents and copyrights implementation?
Maybe some people are getting some money, but I know if Amazon (random example company name) violate copyright or a patent of mine, I don't have the resources to take them to court over it much less win.
Sure, but if you have a strong copyright infringement case, couldn't you team up with a litigating company and take on Amazon? I am not sure that in any industry any tiny mom and pup shop can take on the largest corporate player without any cooperation from complementary interests...
In my experience, most law firms won’t go near big tech because of their litigious nature. Just the sheer amount of time and filings by big tech, legal or not, is enough to totally overwhelm an inexperienced legal team. It’s like a denial of service attack but through the court system.
The firms that will fight them are few and far between, and are priced accordingly.
Stallman has honestly done a ton of harm to our field. His “business model” reeks of ivory tower privilege and has ripped a ton of wealth and, more importantly, self-confidence, out of developers worldwide for at least 15-20 years now.
That hits hard from my youth (and I'm only in my early 30s). Can we all please actively communicate to people that open source is not a business model, and any large firms promoting it are likely just looking for free work? Like communicate that in an empowering way?
Yeah, it would probably decimate open source contributions in the short term. But honestly, our field would be so much healthier overall in the long term.