Re:“I wish I could have licensed the Id source code releases...
by jrochkind1 on Tuesday July 06, 2021 @01:22PM
(#27751570)
There was a lot of money to be made on the platforms that OSS ran on from the very beginning of OSS. That's not a change. It wouldn't have been an issue if there wasn't.
In the eyes of original generation of OSS supporters, the 'lot of money to be made' was what made OSS important, to ensure that people access to software that served them as users, instead of just being made to make a lot of money off of them.
Arguably, despite the takeover of open source, that vision failed.
So, now, rather than opposing "money to be made" with the "interest of users" those opposed to open source (while making a case that they are the ones really more "in the original spirit of open source" than open source itself)... say they are sticking up for the ability of the small entrepeneur to make money not just the big corporation.
That's the change, not that there's a lot of money to be made from software. From the start of the OSS movement there was a lot of money to be made off of software, if there weren't OSS wouldn't have been relevant in the first place. Original OSS said if making sure users have the freedom to do what they need with software reduces the money to be made off of it... that's fine. New line says the thing is to reserve the right of the small entrepeneuers (or those who can convince the internet mob that they are smaller and more deserving than Amazon anyway) to make money off users, and try to prevent big corporations from getting a piece of the pie that rightfully belongs to "deserving" businesses, who are deserving because... they're smaller.
I have some ideas of what the differences actually are, I think it's not about how much money is to be made, but how the actual individual software engineers made money; who their employers were and how those employers behaved. I think it has to do with both greater "austerity" and "efficiency" among large employers, and greater dreams of getting rich as an "entrepeneur" among individual developers.
In the eyes of original generation of OSS supporters, the 'lot of money to be made' was what made OSS important, to ensure that people access to software that served them as users, instead of just being made to make a lot of money off of them.
Arguably, despite the takeover of open source, that vision failed.
So, now, rather than opposing "money to be made" with the "interest of users" those opposed to open source (while making a case that they are the ones really more "in the original spirit of open source" than open source itself)... say they are sticking up for the ability of the small entrepeneur to make money not just the big corporation.
That's the change, not that there's a lot of money to be made from software. From the start of the OSS movement there was a lot of money to be made off of software, if there weren't OSS wouldn't have been relevant in the first place. Original OSS said if making sure users have the freedom to do what they need with software reduces the money to be made off of it... that's fine. New line says the thing is to reserve the right of the small entrepeneuers (or those who can convince the internet mob that they are smaller and more deserving than Amazon anyway) to make money off users, and try to prevent big corporations from getting a piece of the pie that rightfully belongs to "deserving" businesses, who are deserving because... they're smaller.
I have some ideas of what the differences actually are, I think it's not about how much money is to be made, but how the actual individual software engineers made money; who their employers were and how those employers behaved. I think it has to do with both greater "austerity" and "efficiency" among large employers, and greater dreams of getting rich as an "entrepeneur" among individual developers.