this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
39 points (71.4% liked)

Open Source

31218 readers
20 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm unbiased towards the subject. I'm genuinely curious about how long-term FOSS ideology would work.

I'm using FOSS but I'd still consider myself a casual user. It seems like most FOSS I've seen is a free, buggy, alternative to mainstream software, which resolves a problem the user had.

From my perspective, (and do correct me if I'm wrong) FOSS doesnt seem sustainable. Everyone can contribute, but how do they make a living? My guess is they do other things for income. And what about the few contributors who do 90% of the work?

What if every software became FOSS? Who would put in the free labor to write the software to print a page, or show an image on screen, or create something more complex like a machine learning advanced AI software?

Would it simply be that everyone provides for each other? Everyone pitches in? What about people who have bills to pay? Would their bills be covered?

This concludes my right-before-bed psychology inquiry.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments