Is Open Source Exploitative?
from the no,-but-the-political-system-is dept
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Filed Under: exploitation, open source, voluntary
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Just right click and select "view source"
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Speaking of trolls...
Trolling will start in 3, 2, 1....
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Doin' it for the Lulz
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Re: Doin' it for the Lulz
Although in all honesty I have to admit the selfish side of me would be jealous over not getting any of that moola. Fortunately I'm a civilized individual and able to suppress that animalistic side. I would rather see a stranger profit from sharing my idea then everyone suffer from its absence.
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Re: Re: Doin' it for the Lulz
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Re: Re: Re: Doin' it for the Lulz
Don't go after the hosted content.
Go after the links. That way they can persecute more people.
If they took down the hosted content, then all the links would be worthless and they couldn't go on ruining people's lives.
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..not sure about you but I don't mind exploiting myself every now and again..
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Maybe open souce can buy you happiness
That being said, it would be nice if those who contributed to open source ventures got paid out of whatever profits do pop up. I suppose money isn't everyone's prime motivation...it is mine...but go figure!
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Re: Maybe open souce can buy you happiness
Absolutely agree...though I'd go one step further and say that yes, it is exploitation, but voluntary exploitation. Not all exploitation is bad, and in this case, the programmer is well aware of what they are doing and what they are giving up and give it up freely (which is what I think Nina is saying.) However, I've heard people use this same argument to me when discussing my open source activities. Luckily my employer is very happy with my "side-learning," but I've heard people say that open source causes all sorts of problems for the companies that employ hobby open source programmers because they split their efforts and the employer isn't getting full efficiency from the programmer because of this (which is stupid...I believe, and I see from others too, that I am more efficient at my real job because I am more experienced and have a wider scope than others that don't have those experiences.)
I write open-source to scratch an itch, or to do something that I want to do...I get paid to do monkeywork, and as far as I am concerned, I have far more fun scratching itches than the monkeywork I do at work. If I was paid to do the open-source work...I am not sure I'd have as much fun (though it would be nice to have more time to spend on my open source stuff...but I'd probably waste it on fixing up my house or other stuff.)
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Re: Re: Maybe open souce can buy you happiness
That's only true if the company feels like they have a right to the programmer's time outside of work hours. Unfortunately, they often do. I've seen mandatory overtime for projects lasting years, and people coming in on their vacation days. I've actually seen "Anyone who's taking vacation this Friday is required to work this Saturday." (Totally ignoring that people generally take Fridays off to get an extended weekend.) When a company has this philosophy, it's easy for them to think that any "other" programming is somehow interfering.
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Reminds me of Huffington Post
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Re: Reminds me of Huffington Post
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Fame, not fortune
As someone who has contributed to a couple open source projects myself, I see that the altruistic nature of it impresses people. It often becomes a talking point during interviews and discussions with other software professionals - and it looks good on a resume.
It also serves as an example of my abilities in the real world (as opposed to some closed source product I worked on for a previous employer, which I cannot show to others). "I can do X and Y, see project Z on github as proof".
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Re: Fame, not fortune
It may not be about fame. Some people never get fame.
It can be about passion. It can be to scratch your own itch or solve your own problem and hopefully solve others' problem at the same time.
It might just be for plain ol' fun. Or a hobby.
Someone who builds, say, a Rubik cube solver, probably didn't do it for fame. Or money. What other possible reasons are there?
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Re: Re: Fame, not fortune
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If anyone thinks it's exploitive...
In the decade-plus since that article was written, some things have changed: in particular, open source has become even MORE important. For instance, the author mentions majordomo, which at the time was the best-available software for mailing list management; it's now been supplanted by Mailman -- also open source. Apache rules the web, and its only real competition are other open source servers. Languages like Python and Ruby have gained prominence. Perl has matured into a a very rich environment. MySQL and PostgreSQL have become the databases of choice (nod to nosql approaches). Solr/Lucene are on their way to dominating search. Sendmail no longer dominates as it did then -- but the serious competition (postfix, exim, courier) is all open source.
I think at this point it's not hyperbole to say that it's impossible to use the Internet without using open source. So to those who object: bye.
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The only people who complain about open source . . .
People who write open source aren't complaining. Nobody is holding a gun to their head to write open source code.
It's like saying people who do volunteer charity work are being exploited. If anyone actually said this, then they are free to not volunteer and go spend their efforts doing whatever they please. Leave alone the other people who volunteer to help others -- possibly by writing open source code for their use.
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For sake of argument
To say that everything has a monetary value is pure ignorance.
Life for example. If you and your loved ones could live forever, would you trade that for money?
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Exploitation?
So, instead, let's consider the many ways that contributors to open source projects are tangibly rewarded. Those who still say open source is exploitation need to consider a few things.
First: It ignores the many, many programmers who get paid to develop open source projects. How many programmers are on salary at Google?
It also opens the doors for programmers to build their own businesses out of open-source software. For example, the Drupal CMS (like most CMS's) is completely open-source, but there are tons of businesses whose sole job is to deploy Drupal websites for money. And because open source has a much lower barrier to entry than closed source, it makes it easier for smaller businesses to enter the market.
In fact, I'd say a huge percentage of the actual code contributed to open source projects comes from the people I just mentioned. Again regarding Drupal, many widely-used third-party modules originate from businesses, not volunteers.
Second: even if the programmers don't get paid in money, that doesn't mean they are doing the work without a tangible reward. Chief among them: They get robust software that costs nothing - meaning they often don't have to pay huge amounts of money that they would otherwise. (In addition, that software is often more convenient - no nag screens or DRM, etc - and more secure.)
Now, this isn't necessarily a reward for contributing, since even people who don't contribute get the same software. I have a PC loaded up with free software of many varieties, and I haven't contributed to the majority of those projects.
But more importantly for programmers, they also get software that is libre (free as in freedom). This means that if they want the software to work differently, they can modify it themselves. This makes free software more useful than closed source software. The polite thing to do is release those changes back to the community, but even that is not required.
Third: It completely ignores the "resume effect" - the fact that your open-source code can be used to get yourself a paid programming job. Admittedly, this is a bit of a long shot (speaking from experience), but it's not trivial. Also, if you're already a paid programmer, often you can't show examples of your work to future employers - since that work is closed source, covered under NDA's, etc.
Now, obviously, you're not going to get stupid rich simply because you contributed a few lines of code to Wordpress or whatever. But even by traditional standards, open source can hardly be called "exploitation."
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