Yeah, this. To me, as an admitted Free software person, the Open software movement looks like it was designed to undermine the Free movement. I don't think it actually was deliberately designed that way, just that it looks that way in hindsight.
I also don't really get the point of Open licenses because you could always already just give away your code, so to me it makes it seem like the only folks really benefiting from OSS are the people using the code but not sharing their improvements and the people (often the same people) who want to lock you out of [editing the software in] their products.
> idea of causing social change by coding free software
FWIW, that also seems to me to be a later gloss. If anything, computers and software are new enough that it's not so much a matter of social change as it is of founding new social norms around these (physical/virtual) machines. RMS just wanted to edit the software in his printer. Look at the restrictive B.S. that tractor makers are foisting on farmers to see the relevance. Is the idea of being able to fix your own tractor a "social change"? :)
Yes. I think the original idea was just to present the hippy free software idea in a more business-friendly form, and thus cause more FOSS to be written.
> > idea of causing social change by coding free software
> FWIW, that also seems to me to be a later gloss. If anything, computers and software are new enough that it's not so much a matter of social change as it is of founding new social norms around these (physical/virtual) machines.
Fair enough. Though I don't think free software was so much about forging norms per se, more like an adaptation of old ideas like "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" to the digital age. As opposed to just letting the modern day robber barons have it their way, which to an extent is what's happening with open source.
> RMS just wanted to edit the software in his printer.
Sure, but it spiraled away from that pretty fast.
> Look at the restrictive B.S. that tractor makers are foisting on farmers to see the relevance. Is the idea of being able to fix your own tractor a "social change"? :)
No, more like defending "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" rather than letting the robber barons get away with whatever they can. That being said, AFAICS free software has had about zero impact on this topic; the successes in this are seem to be due to grassroots political campaigning (right to repair laws etc.) rather that some argument that software should be free (in the FSF sense).
It's hard to avoid feeling like the free software movement has failed pretty comprehensively at its stated goals.
For me, as a computer nerd, it's always been hard to understand why normal people aren't fascinated by computers like I am, but the plain fact is they're not. Something like two billion people think facebook is the internet, eh? Everyone has a radio-connected supercomputer in their pockets but it's a locked-down mall and video game arcade, and that seems to be all most people want.
I try not to think about it too much. Maybe this is the shape of human destiny? To be cells in some vast AI body?
The issue that I see is that many (most?) people want a middle ground:
On the one hand, it's not important to them to use some sort of viral copyleft license that forces people who use their project to make their code free.
On the other hand, they don't want people who use their project to be aggressively anti-competitive or anti-developer.
So for example, it would be fine if Apple charged for their OS and kept it closed source as long as they allowed anyone who wants to develop apps for their OS to do so.
Agreed, and you're not even nitpicking, this is a significant point that devs need to understand before they choose to go open source.
But let's talk more broadly: Servers. Linux is great for servers. But remind me: who gives a flying fuck about servers? Surely not the FSF, because most real people use personal computers (that means desktop/laptop/tablet/phone/smartwatch/anything else you the typical user can physically unplug/open) and don't administer servers, and on top of that the FSF dislike services in the first place! (See: "service as a software substitute").
People don't have control over enterprise software in most cases - even at the office, your IT department literally chooses what you can do on "your" computer. So why do we have so much free software aimed at business, and so little aimed at e.g. games? Because that's what our money systems are set up to get funding from. Point is, enterprise software being open-source is not an end in itself, it's only useful as a means to an end.
So while corporations can be a useful tool when our interests align, they should not be our primary pillar of support. That should be the actual users, who pay money.
I think the biggest mistake we ever made was leaning into the "free" in free software. It's not as hard as you'd think - let me ask you, why is paying with ads and data-sucking so popular? I'd say, because they're convenient and ubiquitous. Every browser and user on the planet has support for ads/tracking, so every webpage supports them. They make PayPal niche in comparison! They're also incredibly convenient, having zero-click autopay!
Distros should have had payment models built into the OS (available) from the start. There should have been "app stores" selling free software from repositories - it's absurd that selling free software is claimed as a way of making money, but distros do absolutely nothing to accommodate such sales and will in fact undercut* potentially sustainable free software by repackaging it and putting it in repositories gratis, so now there's not even the slight convenience benefit to buying!
Yes, it's legal for a distro to do that. It's also legal for corporations to be parasitic, that doesn't make it moral.
Anyway, move towards patreon-style funding or traditionally proprietary models that take money directly from the consumer. Then you won't see desktops stagnate due to all the money coming from servers.
Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/619/
Open source will mostly be corporate developers developing OSS on the payroll, where the corporations deem that releasing (some, not all!) software as OSS is better for the bottom line.
Individual developers may release stuff as OSS if they think building an OSS portfolio makes them more employable. Otherwise I think we'll see more, say, "source-available free for non-commercial use" style licenses, because people don't want to be schmucks that are taken advantage of.
Free software will be more clearly focused around trying to drive social change, together with traditional political activism approaches. E.g. right to repair legislation, forcing opening of network protocols so users can access services with their own software and devices, anti-DRM work etc. And as you say, this will clearly be focused on individual computation devices, or small scale servers that individuals can and have a reason to run. That some huge corporation runs or doesn't run free software on their server fleet is irrelevant.
To nitpick: They are not stealing it, they're using it per the license terms. Don't like that? Well, choose a different license.
That being said, I think there's an underlying point here. The "business-friendly" open source movement co-opted the idealistic free software movement. It was no longer about making the world better in terms of having a software ecosystem that respects the four freedoms etc., but about reducing wheel reinvention, minimizing transaction costs, attracting good developers to come work for your corporation, and so on.
One could argue that the idea of causing social change by coding free software in your basement was always an impossible dream. If you want to see political change, join a political movement and get out on the street protesting or something. And vote!
> Yes, it's managed, but you're forever a renter.
Welcome to 21st century tenement farming.
> Remember when the Internet was actually pleasant? When it was nice to build stuff for others to use?
I started hanging around on usenet in the early-mid 90'ies. Let me tell you, it was already a cesspool then (maybe it was better in the 80'ies, but I was too young then, sorry). Of course, back then it was mostly just people being assholes, not billion dollar corporations weaponizing assholes and hatred to drive clicks.
> Stop giving your work away for free when the companies only take.
I think so far open source has worked out pretty well for programmers, because there's such a huge demand for (competent) ones. If you want a glimpse how it'll look when demand starts to match supply better, take a look at your friends with liberal arts, sociology, politics etc. degrees. Unpaid internships and extensive open source portfolios before you get a real job, here we come!