Comment by bigstrat2003

Comment by bigstrat2003 2 months ago

> Open source first felt to me like a way to give power back to ordinary people, and it still is, but it seems like those who get the most benefit from free labor are large corporations.

As I often do on this topic, I feel compelled to point out that this isn't actually a problem. Software is not a scarce resource, and Microsoft (or whomever) getting huge benefits from a project doesn't prevent the project from doing good for the common man as well. Since nobody is being hurt by corporate usage of open source, there's no problem.

jamilton 2 months ago

>Since nobody is being hurt by corporate usage of open source, there's no problem.

I presume this is the problem - if you dislike Microsoft, then Microsoft benefiting is potentially a problem.

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xtracto 2 months ago

This! It seems as of individuals doing OSS nowadays are expecting something in return. In that case, they should setup a business, not release OS.

I've got aplenty of code I haven't released because I think at some point I could build a business with it.

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tonyedgecombe 2 months ago

>As I often do on this topic, I feel compelled to point out that this isn't actually a problem.

It is for me, I don't want to spend my precious time helping a corporation like Microsoft increase their dominance.

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vladms 2 months ago

Without open source it would be worse. Imagine windows on all phones.

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- tonyedgecombe 2 months ago
  
  I'm not sure that follows. Prior to Android we had numerous options, since Android we have two. Prior to Linux we had Solaris, Next, Xenix, HP UX, AIX, BSD, etc. Now we have macOS and Linux. Browse through early issues of Byte or Dr Dobbs and see how many C/C++ compilers were available, now we have gcc or clang.
  
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  Ekaros 2 months ago
  
  Put that way I almost think that open source made things worse. Without it we might have multitude of different computing paradigms. Now we are in essence stuck with two and one of those have enabled the other... And I have no doubt that with enough competition we could do lot better. After all lot of Posix is ancient crap not fit for current age.
  
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  account42 2 months ago
  
  Android didn't win by being open source, it won by having Google backing it. In fact, that it is theoretically open source mattes neither to (most) phone manufacturers nor consumers (good luck actually making use of your software freedoms without being blocked by your bank).
  Isn't a common newbie complaint about Linux that there are too many distros? So it really depends on how you want to count things. And BSDs still exists. So does Haiku and a few other niche operating systems.
  Having many C/C++ compilers doesn't mean a thing if almost all of them are specific to one platform you don't use and half of those you can't afford anyway. And all of them have their own weird quirks.
  Just counting number of competitors means nothing. That decreases in all industries over time, especially when there is little to no antitrust enforcement.
  
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