Ancestors

Toot

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 02:25

@BrodieOnLinux

Was just watching your video on FUTO's open source definition and I would say I agree with their definition of open source in fact if you read @rms reasons for dislikeing the term it is exactly because of the distinction.

The open source initiative's definition is not just open source it's FOSS (they are a fork of the FSF after all) which is a lot more restrictive. Despite their name they are not be all and end all of what it means to be open source. #FOSS #opensource

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Descendants

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 03:40

@BrodieOnLinux

Case and point: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.en.html

Bundling freedom into the idea of open source, which is what the Open Source Initiative® does, does real harm to up and coming commercial open source projects. E.g. @Vivaldi

The freedoms to modify and redistribute help keep incumbent companies in their place at the expense of smaller new companies.

Which is an issue that @fsf has never really addressed.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 04:06

@BrodieOnLinux

The creation of leech projects, i.e. forks that add little to nothing of value on top of the original software but redirect the revenue streams from the project into their own coffers, can be lethal to new companies and highly profitable for the leech.

This makes the comercial success of any FOSS project highly dependent on the stewart company marketing, moreso than other companies because they need to establish themselves as the originators of the project.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 04:22

@BrodieOnLinux

On most #linux distributions this effect is mitegated by package managers who by default connect to repositories run by people that tend to be well informed about FOSS projects and are uninterested in packaging forks that don't make meaningfull contributions on top of the originating project.

There are no such gatekeepers on other operating systems.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 04:45

@BrodieOnLinux

This does a lot to explain three frustrating phenomenoms.

1. The lack of commercially viable companies that develop #FOSS for personal use. (I'm honestly struggling to think of one that isn't either @mozilla or a linux distro)

2. The lack of reach of #FOSS on operating systems that aren't #linux or #linux-like

3. The lack of competition in the #FOSS space, once a project establishes itself as a solution to a problem it quickly becomes THE #FOSS way to solve that problem.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 05:08

@BrodieOnLinux

As far as I can tell most if not all #FOSS projects now fall in to 3 categories.

1. Small hobby projects of some individual or small group of friends with less than 10 users

2. Large hobby projects of large multinational tech companies that want to leverage them to capture the powerusers as customers.

3. Projects that are grandfathered in to the fabric of the #internet or #linux due to being started around the turn of the milenium or earlier.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Written by Neiman -- OLD ACCOUNT on 2024-06-13 at 05:27

@BJ @BrodieOnLinux hmm to which category stuff like Mastodon belongs to?

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from neiman@mastodon.social

Written by BJ@loðfíll.is on 2024-06-13 at 14:47

@neiman

Without doing to much research I believe the answer is:

D) None of the above

(Good thing I qualified the statement with "most if not" :þ )

I'd still be interested if ther are more examples that fall into this category.

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from BJ@loðfíll.is

Written by Neiman -- OLD ACCOUNT on 2024-06-13 at 14:48

@BJ Same here, your thread was great btw!

=> More informations about this toot | More toots from neiman@mastodon.social