alt Hacker NewsYou’re not wrong, but arguments like this ignore the point. For many authors and maintainers, ‘free software’ and ‘open source’ as traditionally defined result in unsustainable outcomes. The original article cites articles explaining several such issues.
Many people in the software industry are looking for new licensing models that take these systemic issues into account. It’s the ecosystem evolving to address current conditions. This should be expected and welcomed, but instead the idea is consistently written off by folks who would rather live by the old rules. The commons continues to suffer for it.
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> arguments like this ignore the point.
And the point should be ignored even more. Free software is a fairly specific thing, trying to co-opt it into something it isn't makes you the bad actor
Make your own idea instead of stealing and leeching off the success of others. Thats frankly disrespectful to even have the gall to do this. You definitely don't deserve ruining another's image for your idea of how society should work.
> For many authors and maintainers, ‘free software’ and ‘open source’ as traditionally defined result in unsustainable outcomes.
I'm very grateful for all this free software, but if a maintainer doesn't think what they are doing is sustainable then they need to stop doing it. That isn't much of a revelation. And if people want to release software that can only be used by people on their ideological wavelength then they can do that, but:
- The projects are probably not going to find much popularity.
- In many ways it is a remarkably entitled position; after all my dishwashing machine doesn't test my moral purity before cleaning my dishes. Why should my software?
- Any ideology that centres on identifying "the bad guys" is too naive to hold a community together without becoming unbelievably corrupt and an insult to whatever ideals the original believers had.