this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Programming
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I feel IP is not the way to go, ever.
Strengthening the concept of IP by creating passive income for individuals does not build a better world.
Is there a way from a software union perspective to ask for more work in gpl/foss based components, maybe?
That would be another way to go about it, but I can't see how we could either force the corporations to open their source, or use that to better compensate workers. I probably could've gone through it more in-depth in the post, but I thought of this idea specifically to help out contractor-type workers who usually don't have basic guaranteed rights like paid time off, but who would not want to lose some of the benefits of contractor-type work by joining the union.
I see now from all the comments how it can have a lot of counter-productive side effects, and I definitely think that FOSS should always be at the heart of every software union (and also internal training, for that matter), but I can't think of a way to use it to solve this specific problem (which I forgot to include in the original post lol).
Ive been thinking a bit about it, but there's no obvious solution. We're reasonably well treated by the capital.
Anything we ask is likely to lower our financial returns in the short term, in my opinion, since free-software can't tap into "free-market" money as easily, for it's intrinsic scaling/copyleft characteristics.
Specifically, we could ask that union members have to dedicate (say) 5% of their hours to free software initiatives. We'd not be releasing proprietary code, but it would be contributing to the ecosystem.
Still, I think something we miss as software developers is the willingness to find our own customers, to use FOSS to compete seriously with middleman giants, like uber and booking.
I'm finding activity pub and lemmy a really interesting case for free, decentralised competition, and a possible solution to scam, by giving providers a chance to build their reputation. There's also opencollective.com's business model, where anyone making money with their platform has to pay them.
How that ties back down with unions, I'm not sure, but I feel those discussions could move forward hand in hand.