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Audun

@baldur Good post. This has been a flaw with FOSS for a long time. You can't build a sustainable model on pure voluntarism. FOSS is a great idea, but it either needs public funding or a model where the users pay for the development. There are a few companies that rely on FOSS and also contributes to it's development, (ie the user pays model), but way too many just treat it as free (as in beer) software.
Public funding is probably a more reliable route. It could be a variant of user pay along with the "public money, public code"-principle, but (some) software should be treated as infrastructure that needs public investment.

5 comments
Eaton

@audunmb @baldur the conflict between “free as in beer” and “free as in puppies” is real

Sven Slootweg

@audunmb @baldur There exist more models than just those two that are sustainable, including ones based on volunteer work - but you do need deliberate and sustainable (collective) management of the commons, and that is what is currently missing.

Cy
I've been worried about where FOSS is heading ever since they coined the term FOSS. The whole nattering on about software licenses is so tiresome. We need power, not permission. By giving permission ourselves, we tacitly agree to allowing them to withhold permission, giving them open license to unbridled exploitation.

No I don't have to declare my software open source, because all software is open source. You're just illegitimately bullying people into ignorance when you close it. Neither of us should be able to close our source code, whether we want to or not.

CC: @audunmb@todon.nl @baldur@toot.cafe
I've been worried about where FOSS is heading ever since they coined the term FOSS. The whole nattering on about software licenses is so tiresome. We need power, not permission. By giving permission ourselves, we tacitly agree to allowing them to withhold permission, giving them open license to unbridled exploitation.
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