At least you’re advocating that someone should get paid. Most open-source/free-software zealots don’t bother to do that.
Motherfuckers just stand on the notion that people with the equivalent of (or actually possessing) postgraduate engineering degrees should just…work for free. Like, literally work at Walmart as a nine-to-five gig, then come home to their hovel with five roommates, and slave away, doing engineering work on free software projects that could be sold for tens of millions.
When I support a company like Valve, I’m looking at their past behavior (supporting open industry standards, for things like controllers and VR, plowing money back into developing blue-sky R&D, in both hardware and software) and the fact that they’re an entirely private holding, as opposed to a public company that has to answer to shareholders. Shareholders, of course, would demand that they stop funding anything that won’t specifically generate a maximum return on investment, in a short or medium timeframe.
Because Valve doesn’t have to worry about that crap, they can build a system that is not inherently brittle. I believe them, when they say they have contingency plans, to make sure that we won’t ever have to worry about losing access to software we purchased licenses to use on their systems. And if they ever did become insolvent, there is apparently a contingency-contingency plan, to allow people to download fully non-DRM versions of as much of those libraries as possible.
But to the open-source/free-software zealot, none of that matters. The perfect is always the enemy of the good. Valve = proprietary, so they’re bad, according to you.
Imagine a (post scarcity at that) world without profit incentive.
As long as people have the basics (which just means they have options) we will work for joy of others, to benefit society or nature, to further science, art, etc. Each in our own way. Studies have proven that. But can’t be Mozart if stuck at a 9-5 with engineered pressure (to keep you in line), a mortgage & commute. The procrastination myth was fed to us (and masqueraded as tiredness from work, as it that is weird).
At least you’re advocating that someone should get paid. Most open-source/free-software zealots don’t bother to do that.
Motherfuckers just stand on the notion that people with the equivalent of (or actually possessing) postgraduate engineering degrees should just…work for free. Like, literally work at Walmart as a nine-to-five gig, then come home to their hovel with five roommates, and slave away, doing engineering work on free software projects that could be sold for tens of millions.
When I support a company like Valve, I’m looking at their past behavior (supporting open industry standards, for things like controllers and VR, plowing money back into developing blue-sky R&D, in both hardware and software) and the fact that they’re an entirely private holding, as opposed to a public company that has to answer to shareholders. Shareholders, of course, would demand that they stop funding anything that won’t specifically generate a maximum return on investment, in a short or medium timeframe.
Because Valve doesn’t have to worry about that crap, they can build a system that is not inherently brittle. I believe them, when they say they have contingency plans, to make sure that we won’t ever have to worry about losing access to software we purchased licenses to use on their systems. And if they ever did become insolvent, there is apparently a contingency-contingency plan, to allow people to download fully non-DRM versions of as much of those libraries as possible.
But to the open-source/free-software zealot, none of that matters. The perfect is always the enemy of the good. Valve = proprietary, so they’re bad, according to you.
Whatever. Narrowmindedness is what it is.
Imagine a (post scarcity at that) world without profit incentive.
As long as people have the basics (which just means they have options) we will work for joy of others, to benefit society or nature, to further science, art, etc. Each in our own way. Studies have proven that. But can’t be Mozart if stuck at a 9-5 with engineered pressure (to keep you in line), a mortgage & commute. The procrastination myth was fed to us (and masqueraded as tiredness from work, as it that is weird).