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The Failed Economics of Our Software Commons
An anonymous reader writes: Most software developers are intimately familiar with having to waste time implementing something they probably shouldn't need to implement, or spending countless hours making their code work with bad (but required) software. Developer Paul Chiusano says this is because the economic model we use for building software just doesn't work. He writes, "What's the problem? In software, everyone is solving similar problems, and software makes it trivial to share solutions to these problems (unlike physical goods), in the form of common libraries, tools, etc. This ease of sharing means it makes perfect sense for actors to cooperate on the development of solutions to common problems. ... Obviously, it would be crazy to staff such critical projects largely with a handful of unpaid volunteers working in their spare time. Er, right?? Yet that is what projects like OpenSSL do. A huge number of people and businesses ostensibly benefit from these projects, and the vast majority are freeriders that contribute nothing to their development. This problem of freeriders is something that has plagued open source software for a very long time." Chiusano has some suggestions on how we can improve the way we allocate resources to software development.
As a little toddler I already developed signs of geekiness. As I grew older, my geekiness ballooned so much so that I could not, even if I want to, deny that in this life, I am a geek
Now that I am old, as an old geek, I still think that what we geek do, what we truly enjoy doing, often goes counter to the outside rule
That is why, when that guy is telling me (and other geeks) that we live by a "failed economic commons", hey, I am not surprised
If we geeks are to live by a "successful economic commons" many of the geeky things that we do, and many of the geeky creations that we have created, would not exist
The gist of the whole thing is this --- economy, whether it be "failed" or "successful" --- is in eye of the beholder
One can say that the economy of a certain country/region is good --- but good for whom? For the general populace, or for the 0.1%?
That is why, we geek don't give a flying fuck about the economy. We do what we do because we enjoy what we do. That is all
If they (and when I say "they" I mean those who look down on the geeks) don't like it, they can go jump into the sea
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
If you don't want free riders, don't make free software.
You get to choose your license. You don't get to complain that people are following it.
The opinions stated herein do not necessarily represent those of anybody at all. Deal with it.
Large companies need to stop spending boat loads of money on buying overpriced, re-released commercial operating system and productivity software that changes absolutely nothing useful about business functionality and spend maybe say, 10% of the money from what that budget would have been on donating to or contributing to software projects that the infrastructure's critical functionality relies upon.
Seriously. The money would go further and the software would last longer and everyone would get a lot more actual work done. Every time you buy a new version of Windows its like you're paying to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
And don't fucking reply to me saying shit like "durrr, but OpenSSL got hacked and doesn't deserve to have had more money." Maybe that's true, but probably not. Even if it were true, above, I said donating or contributing, as in - spend your own company resources auditing the software if you don't trust it. If you find enough vulnerabilities to distrust the people who make it, then FORK IT OR PAY SOMEONE TO DO SO. The bottom line is, economically even in a worst-case scenario its still cheaper than every single company rolling their own from scratch, or every single company buying the same software over and over again made (perhaps not any more securely or competently) by some completely unaccountable, inauditable closed-source company.
In this case the loss leader may just be a payment on other projects.
When Elon Musk develops his Tesla thing that I do not own, does this change things for me, does it make me poorer or wealthier? Well, it's making the economy more productive, it's making the overall economy wealthier because of this new product that people want and a generally wealthier economy allows people to pursue their hobbies and in the case of free software developers the hobbies are developing free software (excuse me for that), so when I say a "loss leader", maybe another way to put it is a payment.
In the software world code because currency itself. Code is something tangible, code has intrinsic value to people who want to use that code for something, so code is actually money. We exchange code, we exchange money, we make payments to each other this way.
In fact us not charging for our code in some fiat government currency but instead just using each other's code, we are going around the government taxation and various business regulations.
For all the talk about so many programmers being 'socialists', we are actually doing everything we can to avoid paying taxes, if the politicians only understood what kind of an economy is running right under their noses in this so called "free" software community, they'd be screaming murder! There would be Obama on the stage, talking about "paying fair share" and throwing "you didn't build that" slogans, while pointing fingers at a community that exchanges what basically amounts to labour without allowing government to skim off the top.
You can't handle the truth.
wait, WHAT? A group of people releases some code without asking for any money and then if people start using the code then they will come for money later? I am with the OpenBSD team on this, not with you! What you are suggesting is actually immoral and probably cannot be legally enforced. Once you release your code under a license that allows people to use it (at least that version of it, which you released), you can't now come after those people's money!
You know you don't have to develop anything at all, you don't have to develop anything for free and you don't have to develop anything and then give it away, but if you do, don't cry if people start using it!
Now, I already mentioned that in free software community code became money long time ago, that's the point I am trying to make - code is money and we exchange it for free seemingly, but actually we are making a payment with our code to other people who also create code that we can use.
Code is money and the labour that is used to create this wealth is not taxed or regulated by government, we do it on our own around all government regulations and around taxes and that is what built a vibrant economy, which the guy in TFA doesn't understand.
You can't handle the truth.
If we want to address this issue, we need a complete overhaul of our IP laws.
Er, no.
The 'why' has little to do with IP law and a lot to do with group dynamics, especially herd behaviour. Take this statement, for example:
The problem with the 'snowdrift' here, to abuse the metaphor, has nothing to do with IP law, and nothing to do with lack of innovation. It has everything to do with the size of the drift. You don't have any choice but to wait for someone else to come along to help shovel. But the author is trying to say, If everyone doesn't shovel, nobody gets out. And that's not always true.
A quick reminder: When HTML first came out, the very first thing virtually every proprietary software vendor of note did was publish their own website design tool. And each of those tools used proprietary extensions and/or unique behaviour in an attempt to corner the market on web development, and therefore on the web itself.
But the 'snowdrift' in this case was all the other companies. Because no single one of them was capable of establishing and holding overwhelming dominance, the 'drift' was doomed to remain more manageable by groups than by any single entity. (Microsoft came closest to achieving dominance, but ultimately their failure was such that they have in fact been weakened by the effort.)
Say what you like about the W3C, and draw what conclusions you will from the recent schism-and-reunification with WHATWG. The plain fact is that stodgy, not-too-volatile standards actually work in everybody's favour. To be clear: they provide the greatest benefit to the group, not to the enfant terrible programmer who thinks he knows better than multiple generations of his predecessors.
Yes, FOSS projects face institutional weaknesses, including a lack of funding. Especially on funding for R&D. But funded projects face significant weaknesses as well. Just look at the Node.JS / io.js fork, all because Joyent went overboard in its egalitarian zeal. Consider also that recent widely publicised bugs, despite the alarm they've caused, haven't really done much to affect the relative level of quality in funded vs proprietary vs unfunded code bases. They all have gaping holes, but the extent of their suckage seems to be dependent on factors other than funding. If not, Microsoft would be the ne plus ultra of software.
Weighed in the balance, therefore, FOSS's existential problems are real, and significant, but they're not as significant as those faced by all the other methods we've tried. So to those who have a better idea about how to balance community benefits and obligations, I can only reply as the Empress famously did when revolutionaries carried her bodily from the palace: 'I wish them well.'
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
The article is long and poorly organized (that is, the organization is stream of conscious writing like most bloggers; he goes off into a mini-rant about how much he hates CSS/HTML, for example). Here is a summary, as well as I can understand it:
1) A new non-profit is trying to make it easy to fund open-source software, with a new donation method. You can donate, but your donation doesn't go through until ten (or X) other people donate the same amount.
2) This will increase funding for open source projects because:
* Companies don't want to fund open source if someone else will do it.
* It will be cheaper TCO for companies to fund open source projects they use. For example, if OpenSSL had been given more money, they would have fewer bugs (probably by rewriting everything in Erlang; really, that's what he said).
That is literally it. In all 2000 words he wrote, I cannot find another single point that supports his main thesis, that the new non-profit will increase funding for open source-projects. He however did spend a lot of words explaining that popular open source projects should get more money from the companies that use them, so that's something.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How about the Fed give money to individuals instead of corporations?
"Steal from the right people" is still worse than "don't steal".
Oh so basically you've bounded the debate?
Show me a single argument that's not from either an anarchist or an idiot that explains how to run a country with zero taxation (ignore the tiny minority of countries that can run entirely on oil exports or such, we're talking the general case).
Regardless, you have to explain what "lawful" means.
No, I don't. That word is in the dictionary and its definition is in no way disputed.
I don't care [...] Because morally,
So you're asking me to explain "lawful" only to say that it actually doesn't matter?
Other than 400 years ago, we did it with swords and gallows and dungeons and now we've made it a bit cleaner.
You need to get your head out of your ass and into a history book. The rule of law is at least 2000 years old and while governments have always had the option of force, its actual use is comparatively rare. Especially compared to mob rule. Today, 100 or 1000 years ago - you can clearly see that when the government breaks down, violence and crimes increase dramatically.
Morally, the difference between a "noble" passing a law that he can rape your wife on the first night of your marriage and then take your money for the rest of your life, is exactly the same as changing the US constitution to allow the state to tax in like manner.
Firstly, you really need to study history. While ius primae noctis makes for a great legend, historians today are not convinced it ever actually existed, and even if it did there are no confirmed cases of it ever being actually used.
Secondly, you should explain whether you are ok with the general principle of a society or not. In this context, "society" means that a group of people can make rules for themselves and enforce them. The details (nobility, democracy, segregation of powers, etc.) are unimportant as long as you make a covert argument that basically calls anything except pure anarchy immoral. So please come out of hiding behind phrases and state your position clearly. Do you think that people should be able to form societies and enforce their rules on each other or not?
With a MORAL argument
Humans are social animals by nature.
A society can only function if it can enforce its rules.
Laws are basically moral rules written down.
Therefore, I don't see a principal difference between legal and moral arguments.
The difference is that everyone thinks they understand moral, but few people understand law. And yes, not all laws are codified ethics, that's true. Many are of administrative nature, for example.
Is there no room in this world for morals?
Morals differ, even from person to person. That's why a society needs a common set of values.
anyone who found you could just steal, rape, kill at will?
Look around you. What's happening in Syria and Iraq? What's happening in parts of Africa? Yes, my idealistic friend, this is exactly what happens when government breaks down and societies fail. Sure, it is morally wrong, but it happens.
So in fantasy lalaland, where everyone is perfectly moral and also shares the same morals, you don't need governments, taxation and all this shit. In the real world, where real humans with all their mistakes live, you do.
I won't ask you to describe how a world based purely on morals and without government "interference" would work. Greater minds have failed at that task.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org