Re: Coffee and Open Source

[Jeff Licquia <jeff@licquia.org>]

On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 18:51, mike808@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
> > > But it's the disconnect between what the minority is willing to create 
> (what 
> > > meets their interests) and the demand by the majority to meet their 
> interests.
> > > We just haven't figured out a good mechanism for connecting the two, since
> > > the GPL and other OS licenses remove the economic incentive. If money
> > > can be considered a "universal translator" to exchange value, and we've
> > > no ability (yet) to scale this for open source development, then how does
> > > the majority incent the minority to create software to meet their needs?
> > 
> > I suppose I don't see it.  But, then again, I've been living fairly well
> > doing open-source development for several years now. :-)
> 
> Let me try another way, you work on what you want as an OS developer.
> There's a disconnect there with what the vast masses of folks that have
> no intention of ever writing a lick of code want from OS software. i.e.
> Kpresenter or Impress being easier and better to use than MS PowerPoint.
> Just because a gajillion people want a slick desktop office productivity
> suite doesn't infer that *you* will have any interest in creating it.

In my case, no.  But the very existence of Kpresenter and Impress
implies that someone does.  In the meantime, I work on things that
interest me, or things that interest people who are willing to pay me to
do them.

> I'm not discounting the progress we've made in the last years, it's 
> unbelievably impressive. But I don't know if the raw numbers of OS developers 
> actively contributing has continued to rise, if their quality has gone down.
> It could just be that the number of non-contributors has grown so exponentially 
> that it just dwarfs the perspective when looking at the OS community size in 
> comparison. Not that that's a bad thing, either. Just trying to grok it all.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there.  I actually am a little
pleasantly surprised that we're doing as well as we are.

> I meant free (as in beer, not Free as in speech), and yes, you can look
> at the source code. But if BK gets a whiff of you looking at it to go
> tell the Subversion folks what they're doing, they get very upset, and
> will likely yank your access/license. 

Actually, it's worse than that.  They get pissed if you've ever helped
other VC projects, whether or not you used BK knowledge to help the
other project.

> Admittedly, it's a *terrible* form of an
> "open source" license. Which is why I didn't say "Open Source" (note C12N)
> or "Free" as in GPL. So, technically, if it doesn't cost anything
> and you (under certain conditions) can see the source code, that makes it
> "free" and "open source". As I said, I think they (BK) could do better.

Well, yeah.  That's the thing about this "free" language problem; it's
not wrong to think "no-cost", which makes it hard to emphasize the
"won't-imprison-your-mind" part.  I suppose that saying it's "free"
implies that your mind has no value.  For some of us, that might be
true, I guess. :-)

I disagree about "open source", though.  If it really were "open", then
I wouldn't have to worry that reading it would somehow cause a part of
my own mind to be 0wn3d by some dude I've never met.  BK-style "open
source" or MS-style "shared source" isn't open just because it invites
you to its prison.

It's kind of a semantic quibble of sorts, but it's important to me; I
already have a hard enough time talking to people about freedom without
everyone's mind shifting to economics, so I grasp at what straws I can.

-- 
Jeff Licquia <jeff@licquia.org>

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