this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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A lot of open source software is written by people working for corporations. Red Hat may have started out as a plucky co-op but it's now part of IBM. MySQL is written primarily by Oracle. The fact that the source is open doesn't mean it's all volunteer work.
That doesn't mean it wasn't a massive transfer of wealth, just that for a lot of it people were paid a fraction of the wealth they created rather than none at all.
Sidenote: Here's a good article about how software developers can wage class warfare. Some tips are: Don't help other people learn things, never write documentation, and make your code as opaque as possible so your boss doesn't get anything from you for free.
Valve probably stands at the company who has "given back" the most in recent history (making Desktop Linux viable for the first time ever, mostly through gaming), but even Valve has corporate America skeletons in their closet. (Like the only reason they have a decent refund option now is because Australia basically forced them, and they had to change their flash sales for European laws.)
Valve's bigger, and unforgivable crime, is their failure to release Half Life 3.
The real Half Life 3 is the friends and software we made along the way.
Or, you know, how they pioneered loot boxes and gambling to children in their games
Valve still is a corporation, decently good at open source, but still a corporation that develops and distributes a lot of closed source software. Like the github ceo once wrote: open source the engine not the car, that’s what drives open source development for them. When many use their software and contribute patches and more importantly report bugs, everyone wins.
I don't hate Valve, but let's be real, they're not adding to Linux out of the goodness of their hearts: They're doing it to protect their profits because they see that Windows is quickly becoming more closed and has its own Xbox gaming storefront. It isn't about belief in Linux as a product, it isn't about improving it for everyone, it's about improving it enough for gamers so that Steam won't be eventually locked out of the digital games sales market by Microsoft. They're basically just buying their way out of the vendor-lock-in of putting their store on someone else's proprietary operating system.
I don't think Linux desktop usage jumping from 1% to nearly 3% equals "everybody wins." Sounds like to me a lot of fuckin people are still losing. Like 97% of them at least.
I don't see the problem there. If someone is doing a good thing because it is profitable for them to do that good thing that's fine.
You're right, but the thing is most of the time companies do horrible things to boost their profits. Like Unity in the last few days. Valve doing seemingly pro-consumer things to protect their profits is a rarity, and it's really only a side-effect that there's consumer benefit. They aren't doing it to benefit consumers, they're doing it to preserve their marketplace. It's a side effect that it gives consumers more options. Valve is an unusually forward-thinking company when it comes to its long-term viability.
Maybe I want to root for the unprecedentedly forward thinking companies, because it's like a glimpse of what a lot of companies probably look like in other countries, especially the Nordic countries, that haven't had a history that led to their governments being able to be used as a tool to stifle competition, unlike the US
Okay, I may have misunderstood the intent of your comment. I thought you were saying something like we should be mad at Valve for helping Linux because it helps their profits. It now seems like you were just making sure everyone was aware of the context. Valve has always been one of the companies that is on a pedestal in gamers' eyes. Like Bethesda prior to Fallout 76 and paid mods/creation club. I agree, we should hold them to the same level of scrutiny of other companies.
I don't get what you try to say with your last paragraph. It sounds like you are worried that the poor 97% of Windows and Mac users are losing something because Linux is rising. Which makes absolutely no sense.
It sounds like they're implying most people are losing because they use windows and Mac, instead of Linux, which I don't completely disagree with because of the insane monopoly they have. Just look at all the ads and bloat on windows 11 for a brief example.
Computers must suck for the average user. I'd assume most people on this site would have no issue disabling annoyances in Windows. But most people probably just leave the defaults enabled, which is terrible.
I've been watching old episodes of Computer Chronicles lately - it's amazing how much more user friendly Microsoft products were back in the day.
Enshittification is hitting windows hard these days. Windows 10 was okay in my book. I‘m probably not going to use windows 11. Currently preparing an ubuntu daily driver for operation.
But as doctorow said here, we are crawling back to old anti trust standards which we lost. It’s going to take a long time but it’s going.
I'm not the one who said "everybody wins" in regards to private corporations adding to open source projects while also not making clear what people are "winning" from it.
I don't get your point at all. I know that you do not say that, but you don't even have any counter argument.
The point is the claim was "everybody wins." My point is "everybody" at best is 3% of the population who gives a shit about having control of their own software. No, mostly corporations win. Consumers get some fringe benefits at best. I'm not seeing regular people become multimillionaires simply because they use Linux instead of Windows. Mostly its weird fucking shut-ins.
For context, do you use Linux or have you contributed to open source?
I wouldn't say it's a complete disservice. They made the Steam Deck. And while it's just a fancy GUI (Steam in Game Mode or whatever it's called), that's exactly what people need for it to become mainstream. Besides, if it wasn't for Valve's Proton and Wine, I wouldn't be using Linux as a daily driver today And they (as far as I know, take this with a grain of salt) pioneered the Handheld gaming space (and before you say Nintendo or PSP. They were different than the Steam Deck or the ROG Ally)
And it's a dumpster fire unless you devote a ton of time. It's never been viable as a product to the general public. It's only recently is become even close for regular users.
The utter irony of this being a monetized medium.com article
An interesting read. The advocated actions have many similarities with the guild system.
I think we'd have fewer security problems if we had a tech guild. It would keep unqualified people from becoming sysadmins, for one.
If you think Guilds would solve security problems instead of just propping up security theater, I've got a bridge to sell you.
Like locksmiths who have produced locks with the same flawed design for six millennia now, and instead of fixing it, they're still keeping the act and even went after whistleblowers before.
"How did you get in here?"
"I'm a locksmith, and I'm a locksmith. The unstated part of this joke is that us locksmiths make locks super easy to crack, we just don't share the details with everybody."
A lock is just a suggestion. A determined thief will find a way beyond it.
I've seen too many systems left wide open for me not to think we need some way of having actual experts vet people's resumes and not a bunch of HR people.
I don't disagree, but a "guild" is not it. Engineers in other disciplines have to actually have "engineering" credentials. Software engineers do not, but it sounds like they probably should considering other engineers are held to standards. The States have their own engineering boards to give out and monitor engineer license status. Why isn't there one for software engineering? There needs to be, but it need not be a guild.
There used to be one! It was discontinued (a) for lack of interest since no jobs or regulations require it, and (b) because being eligible to sit for the Professional Engineer (P.E.) exam requires having spent X years (X=4 or more, depending on circumstances) working under the supervision of a licensed P.E., and not many software engineers worked under licensed P.E.s.
(I'm a software engineer with a civil EIT license and worked in the software industry under a civil P.E., so think I would've actually been one of the weirdos in a position to be licensed as a software P.E. Unfortunately, they did away with it before I got the chance.)
That last bit makes a lot of sense, actually, about not having enough licensed P.E. to work under for four years or more. That's kind of a bummer, because the person I was responding to isn't wrong, we're handing the reigns of sysadmin duties to a lot of relatively under-trained folks.
However, on the flip side, the fact that we don't have such a thing is part of what makes the internet so open. Literally anyone is allowed to make their own website.
Because unlike developers, engineers from poor countries can't build stuff remotely.
In case there's requirement to hire only software engineers with licence then companies will just outsource as much as they can.
When did the people in the outsourcing countries suddenly get a state endorsed software engineering license? I would think the opposite would happen, it would restrict outsourcing until other countries had similar licenses for software engineers.
Oh you sound so naive my dude.
These corporations would just 'buy' products or services from third parties.
What is the US government going to do? Stop Bank of America from getting service from Infosys or some other vendor?