Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering

Re:Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering by teddyh on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @08:42AM (#29565756)

> 6. We don’t have the Alan Kay / Free Software / Hypercard dream of everybody having control over their own computer because integrating with disparate APIs is really fucking hard and takes a lot of work to do. This will never get better, because API design is decentralized and everybody is going to make different decisions with their APIs.

No, it’s because it’s the incentive of most every developer involved to make it harder for the user to have control over their own computer. Even though it might make a net win, a proprietary software developer wants to not have competition. Also, they lobby for copyright and DMCA, etc. to further lock in their assumed place in the hierarchy.

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Re:Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering by ponow on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @08:50AM (#29565869)

So software copyright is not a net win?

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Re:Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering by teddyh on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @09:12AM (#29566153)

Probably not, no.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_copyright

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Re:Uncomfortable Truths in Software Engineering by sysOpOpPERAND on Wednesday December 15, 2021 @08:40PM (#29573836)

its fine until it stifles innovation one could argue

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/patent-troll.asp

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