Thanks, I guess I got to build interesting things and I'll never regret that. I always wanted ownership over the things I built and it allowed me that fully 100%. But the journey is hard and long, eventually it gets to you. I can't complain anymore though, I have a house, wife, family, etc. I'm blessed.
I think it depends a bit on the real intention. If the author intends to grow their project to a business and is upfront about it, there is nothing wrong with that. After all a sustainable business would imply sustainable project.
The misfortune happens when the concealed and public intentions are not aligned.
there's intent, and then there's action. I personally don't care for intent. I care about action. The actions of some open source projects are in line with the intent that they want to use the PR generated to gain revenue. When the open source license fails to achieve such goals, they complain (like elastic search did).
One simple solution to the asymmetry is to abolish it. Instead of releasing open source project touted as a "general solution", why not adopt release it as "here is some reference code, it works for my use case. YMMV"
Because that basically would reduce the efficiencies of open source. Rather than having like a single source of Truth for a particular set of functionalities that can improve and iterate over time as a focal point for the demands and needs of all the people who could conceivably use some version of that software, you destroy all that in order to have everybody taking care of their own forks and so obviously you going to be duplicating the work. I mean with unlimited resources it probably doesn't matter but resources are limited.
This is a complex and topical issue. It can be viewed in multiple ways, as a philosophy/ideology, a sustainability/societal risk, a degree of freedom and as a socio-economic system. There is also the business of it all.
My memory of open source in the early days is that it was a mixture of rebellion and passion interweaved with leftist/anarchist stance. A lot of the freedoms we enjoy today were unthinkable back then. What you could do with software, even if you bought it, was highly restricted. If you read about the history back then, you may come to the conclusion that was totally bizarre. Not only were we restricted on what we can do or how we use software, writing software and making it open could subject the author to legal battles and liability. you know what was the next linux?BSD! but the legal procedures complicated its spread and Linus released the kernel at just the right time. I thank everyone who fought for those freedoms.
At that time, most source code that was released under open source licenses(there weren't nearly as many as we have today) was work of passion. I made a few presentations around the world mostly to university students far removed from the bay area to inform them of what is available to them (and secretly convince them to not join the armies developing on a particular platform).
Those days are long gone. And that is ok. If "price" and "freedom of expression" were the 2 dimensions the battle was being fought over, then open source won.
Things changed from "well..uhmm..there is an open source tool.." -> "It is open source" -> "We are open source!" --> "are you open source?"
The open source ecosystem had evolved. I believe in many ways to the better(choice, accessibility, cost) and in some-not-insignificant-ways worse. The accounts of the abuse and hardships maintainers endure are numerous. The bait-and-switch strategy is well documented now. The cloud-eats-opensource is self-evident. The knowledge of the craft, paradoxically, seems more centralized. Certain domains are pretty much proprietary software. Not a bad thing in itself, more like a necessity till economic incentives are better aligned.
There are also a few things which I believe we as a community of practitioners maybe conditioned to overlook or only recognise subconsciously:
1- At some point , open source became a marketing ploy, for individuals or organizations. Open source consumers are not blind or oblivious to this, so they may feel they are indeed paying by giving their attention.
2- The price "$0.0" maybe considered the fair price considering the risks("No warranty, etc.")
3- Substitutes, existing or almost-guaranteed to materialize, are in no short supply.
4- Even though the customer(open source consumer) may not expend a monetary sum, they do expend in kind. We all know the efforts required to get most open source software to work, and to make them work together.
5- There is a mutual, likely unconscious, alienation: one group pointing to the other as the one to blame for not making this ecosystem sustainable. It doesn't help the cause to refer to open source consumers as "vultures". It doesn't help to blame corporations(many of which are responsible for massive open source efforts which would not be feasible without those corporate funds). It doesn't help for consumers to exhibit symptoms of entitlement or subject maintainers to outbursts of anger. This doesn't mean to be apologists or ignore unacceptable behavior. More that I believe focusing on the behavior is more productive than focusing on the actors. One group's apathy to the other doesn't help either one.
So we have mythos and ethos challenges to deal with. Add globalization and they become far more challenging.
In short:
1- We have an economic model that is skewed, on supply side as well as on value capture side.
2- We have an erosion of trust that has been slowly and steadily accumulating over the years.
3- The expectations of the participants are at best ill defined and likely misaligned.
4- Licenses define one type of contract. We are missing "Social" and "Economic" contracts.
5- Speaking of contracts: it can be prohibitively expensive for individual or small teams to consult a lawyer on how to find a balance between open source mythos and economic participation. It can be even more expensive to do that in hindsight. So here FOSS bodies and volunteers could help.
We can simulate what happens from here easily. If nothing changes, it doesn't look good. The rising awareness, however, presents some hope and reason for optimism.
We could try to exert agency and find mechanisms to correct. more decentralised manners could be better fit and easier to customise.
As for a business model, I can't reference any that I believe can be sustainable and result in a viable business.
> 4- Licenses define one type of contract. We are missing "Social" and "Economic" contracts.
People try to reinforce contributing guidelines but then it's not exactly a panacea.
I definitely think there's an opportunity ( for "disruption"? Heh :)) to bring the structuring, ordering and organizing effects of marketplace transactions to open source to clarify ambiguous expectations, to exercise control over the task flow, to connect the work to market realities and rewards.
But an open source project is actually quite subtle and complex in terms of how it is already structured with respect to the interactions between all stakeholders. And participants. Hundreds of thousands or more of tiny little interactions and moments the contribute to the trajectory of a project. So the idea that a single type of business model could fit everything I think it's misguided but definitely I think there's huge scope for creating improvements here.
I also did not get this from the OP article. I would say he could have articulated things better.
It is imperative to note that what constitutes minimum and viable had generally changed since 2010.
We should also keep in mind that those terms are relative terms, depending on the domain.
For me, I think one should know a lot or experienced personally the problem(domain expertise) and be open to the form of the solution(the product). For practical reasons, if nothing else, learning any sufficiently complex domain while trying to build a business is expensive.
I have an intuition that there are multiple classes of ideas:
ideas that are linear interpolation of the present into the future: Those are intuitive, either for domain experts or the general public. A little voice that says "Next we do this..."
ideas that form a gravitational force: these are ideas that pull many, uncoordinated efforts. It is a bit hard to describe, but I think of this as ideas that are "necessary" in a grander emergence that needs the ideas to cement its existence.
Ideas that are not ready to be hatched: "the too early" class. Sometimes because a missing ingredient has not been identified or not sufficiently widely available. When those ideas fail, and a decade or so later new thinkers think them again and realise they failed, sometimes they go back and figure out the prerequisites weren't there and now they are or they build the prerequisites themselves.
Ideas that are non linear: those are the rarest to come by. I believe they require extreme tolerance for counter-factual thinking either naturally or otherwise-inhibition-reducing aids.
This depends a bit on what you aim to get out of reading them? I liked both of the books you mentioned for different reasons personally.
Do you have a set of goals you wish for as an outcome? could you say a bit more about your background as well, please?
@jakobnissen
you have a typo in the first section:
"Among Julians, latiency is"
- Sorry, I would have nudged elsewhere but could not find an alternative venue to contact you.
1.https://www.maltron.com