I've always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let's change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?

I’ve always felt guilty by taking for granted the rare breed of virtuous humans that provide free excellent software without relying on advertising. Let’s change that and pay, how much would I “lose” anyway?

  • MudMan
    11•5 months ago

    It’s not a strawman argument. My response (which wasn’t to you) was triggered by the notion that we “need to normalize paying for foss”. I don’t think that’s true, and I do think it’d lead to generating a “tipping system”. Plus, again, not what the linked article is driving at.

    I’m also not fond of “we live in a system” as an argument for playing by the system’s rules. I mean, by that metric people should just charge for access and call it a day, that’s what the “system” is encouraging. We need sustainable flows of income towards FOSS, but that doesn’t mean step one is normalizing end users feeling obligated to pay.

    • @[email protected]English
      6•5 months ago

      Fair enough in the strawman thing.

      Anyway: Either we enact social change or we literally do the thing that you said: we need to normalize users feeling obligated to pay for FOSS software.

      Actually: IMO, we DO need to normalize people understanding that the reason their software doesn’t suck is because the dev has integrity and hasn’t sold out to corporate interests. They should be reminded of that fact because the pull of greed is PERVASIVE.

      The way I see it,

      We have two options:

      A.) fix the broken FOSS system to properly fund projects that eschew monetary gains and the stockpiling and hiding intellectual property in the interest of the sanctity of these technologies.

      B.) Normalize end users feeling obligated to pay.

      • MudMan
        3•5 months ago

        If the system relies on integrity, it will fail. If it relies on shame or moral obligation it will fail. There is a reason on the other side of the fence they couldn’t root out piracy until they started providing more convenient (but more expensive) alternatives. If you rely on people feeling “obligated” to pay, they either won’t pay anyway or won’t use the software. That’s not a viable option.

        So you’re left with the other option. Whether one agrees that FOSS is “broken” or not, the only way to make the system sustainable is… well, to make it sustainable. If that means enacting political change, then that’s where the effort should go.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•5 months ago

          I very much agree that the social change route is for the best. However, being a cynical old man that has watched Google and others lay waste to the open internet time and again, I guarantee that we’ll have to go with the FOSS hounding route unless some new viable alternative pops up. Thanks for the spirited discussion! I think we both, in the end, want the same thing.

          • MudMan
            2•5 months ago

            Yeah, for sure. I’m just wary that the line between cynicism and defeatism is thin, and defeatism leads to conformism.