He worked for a company out of his own will, and that company paid him in exchange for his work, with the full understanding that all ownership of the work would go to them. I mean, it's not even as if Apple hides that about them- that's one thing they tell you OVER and OVER when you interview with them.
He knew exactly what he was getting into when he accepted to work for them (and did so for many years), and he definitely doesn't seem to mind what he got out of it (salary + the ability to call himself an "ex-Apple employee" and extract the social proof/appeal to authority that comes with it).
I love Bret's work, but this page on his website is very distasteful and comes across as fairly petty.
Did he?
I understand a guy like Brett Victor has more options than most people, but think of the statistics for a second. Most of us work for corporations. The only real choice here is which corporation. (There are other ways, but they often amount to helping corporations, or building your own. That doesn't exactly solve the problem.)
At the end of the day, one's gotta eat. Are you willing to starve to save your own soul? Neither am I. But I'd like to have my cake and eat it too anyway.
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Background: I side with Noam Chomsky and most classical anarchists here: corporations are a systemic problem: they just concentrate too much power. We should dissolve them. As for the problems they solve (like shiny graphic cards), I'm sure we can think of a better way than corporate capitalism (no, I'm not thinking of command economies that are often associated with "socialism" —yet are anything but).
Maybe that hope was crushed and he realized he made a mistake.
The contract theory of morality does not admit well to asymmetry of information. Most organizations preach about the impact one will have, not exclusively about compensation. Certainly Apple would have, certainly Bret would have been looking for impact. Bret was at the informational disadvantage there.
In general, it seems, at least, that if employers decide not to do something with creative works, that they at least have some other life raft they can escape upon.
he got out of it (salary ...
Every month, employees freely give their time to a company. The company is in debt to the employee. At the end of that month there is a financial reckoning and the debt is repaid. The moment the employee comes to work the following day the company is debt to the employee again.
I cannot stress this enough - for the whole month it is the Company that is in debt and should call itself lucky, not the employee.
It is employees that keep the economy going - not employers - as, at the end of each month billions have been lent to Companies by those who work there.
Another outlook is, the employee should count herself lucky to be authorized to work for a company. The company provide money to the employee, which means it feeds her. If it didn't the employee would have to find another benevolent corporation, or starve. Now there is still the occasional maverick who tries to start her own business, but mostly, employees rely on companies to eat.
Yet another outlook is, the company don't feed the employee. The customers of the company feed the employee. Which is why the customer is king: piss him off, and you won't see him again. Do that too much, and you your employees will starve. It will be your fault, and maybe the fault of some of your employees. It's certainly not the fault of the customer, who has every right to choose what to consume.
I personally find these three views (the one you awnsered to, an the two I mentioned) a bit extreme. But they're not strawmen either. Some people really do believe that. In my opinion, this is the sign of a deep problem. I don't know what exactly, but something is off with the current customer/employer/employee arrangement.
> he definitely doesn't seem to mind what he got out of it
you might have glossed over the second entry in the FAQ, where he calls it a "mistake".
sounds to me he made an error in judgement that he would have liked to make differently, in hindsight.
IMO, in such circumstances it seems a bit cold to side with the corporation for the sole reason that they happen to be legally in the right. but maybe that's just me, being all compassionate and silly.
...what blows my mind more though is he keeps giving talks and hasn't open sourced any of his software on github, like he said he would. i doubt he's working on some big product that puts all his software to use. it's all going to waste and could have helped propel the visions he's set forth. it makes zero sense.
As an example, "Inventing on Principle" has inspired many people and companies to think more deeply about development environments, and to try implementing more speculative ideas. A skeptic can point out that much of that consequent work is of mixed quality, but that's just Sturgeon's Law. What matters is that more people will think better thoughts about more important problems. And that's certainly occurring as a result of Victor's talks and essays.
I think it's very obvious what needs to happen to software development right now. I'm straightup doing it--my startup is making come to life much of what Bret put forth in Javascript, where it should exist (on the web, not objective c and other technologies). He could help a lot by sharing his code, no matter what language it's in.
His stuff could change the entire landscape, and now. I get it--we're all stupid developers doing the status quo who can't think for ourselves and invent something new. I get his message. And yes, that's a big part of his message whether he knows it or not. But the point is that the stuff he's put forth for all the live coding and coding observability stuff needs to happen now and like a lot--it will enhance coding by several orders of magnitude. So, I don't need any more talks about how we must think. We need to make simply what he put forth. We need to get done his gospel already so he himself can see what it actually looks like and move to the next level.
My guess is he doesn't want to share the code because of some sort of philosophy that we need to do it ourselves, and more people need to be true thinkers and inventors like him, thinking outside the box. Fuck the philosophy. It's kinda arrogant. Release the code if ur not making ur own company out of it. I used to think he was starting his own company, which is why I never spoke up. But my latest prediction (after seeing this maker spaces drivel) is that he certainly is not.
...And it's drivel because he's making the whole point about observability regarding hardware startups, where it's way less of a big deal as in coding. Like, his breakthrough moment was when he pointed out how all us coders were so stupid for going along with how current coding tools work, which are totally unobservable. That is especially relevant in the abstract world of coding, whereas it is way less profound when it comes to concrete hardware objects, which by nature are observable. Not that it doesn't apply--it's just not at the level of breakthrough described in all his essays on his site.
ps. ur talkin to someone who's read every single essay on his site, cherished his every word. this maker space stuff is crap. he's fallin off, side tracked, whatever. I'd like to see him truly help get some of his ideas executed. It would take zero energy on his part--release the code is basically all im asking.