Re:Why we never thank open source maintainers
by hinkley on Thursday November 23, 2017 @11:46PM
(#15769454)
I’m sure I know the sort you’re talking about, but there’s another quarter being heard from here too.
There isn’t space for an infinite number of libraries in a niche. So if you show up you are occupying space that someone else can’t. Sort of like if your friends throw a party and you decide to throw one on the same day. Kind of a dick move if you don’t have a really really good reason (like it’s your birthday).
Additionally is nearly impossible to sell a library now. It wasn’t always that way, but that’s the world we live in now, in large part because of FOSS. Writing it in-house or using FOSS are pretty much my only two options. So FOSS has to be some significant fraction of the quality of a commercial alternative because we can’t have those anymore. Without any attempt at sufficiency, FOSS effectively makes the world a worse place.
There isn’t space for an infinite number of libraries in a niche. So if you show up you are occupying space that someone else can’t. Sort of like if your friends throw a party and you decide to throw one on the same day. Kind of a dick move if you don’t have a really really good reason (like it’s your birthday).
Additionally is nearly impossible to sell a library now. It wasn’t always that way, but that’s the world we live in now, in large part because of FOSS. Writing it in-house or using FOSS are pretty much my only two options. So FOSS has to be some significant fraction of the quality of a commercial alternative because we can’t have those anymore. Without any attempt at sufficiency, FOSS effectively makes the world a worse place.