Re:Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2016)
by gitgud on Monday June 04, 2018 @08:54PM
(#17234094)
Free secondary markets is a great analogy for open source. What comes to mind is forks and plugins of open source projects, I guess they are a secondary market for the main project.
Re:Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2016)
by AstralStorm on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @03:47AM
(#17235684)
Full forks are very rare. I could count important ones on my fingers.
GNOME forks Cinnamon and Mate (active), libav vs ffmpeg (now closing), mplayer/2/mpv (mostly overtaken by last one).
Most common pattern is multiple packages solving the same problem, rather than forks - and incompatible versions.
Re:Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2016)
by SmellyGeekBoy on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @04:39AM
(#17235902)
LibreOffice? MariaDB? Ubuntu?
Re:Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2016)
by syshum on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @05:53AM
(#17236216)
I would not call Ubuntu a Fork...
The rest are good examples but of the millions of projects very very few are forked successfully
I could add a couple to this list as well but that does not change the fact that successful forks are exceeding rare
Re:Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (2016)
by AstralStorm on Tuesday June 05, 2018 @02:32PM
(#17240648)
MariaDB and LibreOffice were forked for license reasons - the fork was not avoidable. They also took over original code development.
It's a great analogy: just look at the Mac repair shops being sued by Apple, or the idiotic things printer manufacturers and even coffee pod makers do to prevent people from "pirating" their machines.
Free software, and arguably free markets, mean free secondary markets for used goods. That includes all the repair shops and a cottage industry of craftsmen who provide those goods and services.