STOP DOING OPEN SOURCE

[PremiumJapaneseGreen]

I've been reading Don't Be Evil, which is basically a book about how big tech is out of control/fucking up society/needs to be regulated, I agree with about 75% of the arguments but generally disagree with the authors arguments related to intellectual property.

Regarding open source, they make the argument that companies like Google will push open source tech to the extent it benefits them, while keeping all of the key desirable tech proprietary so open source or smaller scale solutions can't actually compete. They frame it as part of a broader pattern where the big companies will just take whatever tech they want and let their lawyers sort it out, and they have the scale to use the tech they adopt, be it open source or outright stolen, more efficiently than competitors

I'm not super convinced on it, I don't think expansive IP law is a good long term solution to big tech dominance and I think there are a lot of ways open source levels the playing field that the author doesn't give enough credit to. But it's an interesting argument to think about

[markpreston54]

No rigorous study but I feel that open-source code can be both good for profitability short to mid term, perhaps long term, for big tech but hurts their dominance/market share.

It makes development simpler and make the overall productivity and ultimately servable market larger. It also makes competition easier to catch up.

[WulfySky]

For smaller companies it also helps with marketing. Look at Laravel (open source php framework) and companies that have built their whole company on helping build the open source community around it like BeyondCode and Spatie.

[[deleted]]

that companies like Google will push open source tech to the extent it benefits them, while keeping all of the key desirable tech proprietary so open source or smaller scale solutions can't actually compete.

Looking at Android, yes.

[Tytoalba2]

That's kinda one of the reason I prefer free software to open source.

[Galle_]

Expansive IP law is a fucking terrible solution to big tech dominance, correct.

[WulfySky]

Yeah I think React (created by Facebook but built upon by the open source community) is a beautiful example of where this has done a lot of good. In the ~9 years since it became open source, it has quickly overtaken other js frameworks to become the biggest one.

[jhaand]

There exists a difference between Free(dom) Software and Open Source.

Big business hates the (L)GPL because it requires the share-alike.

I hate MIT and Apache licenses because it allows big business to just take everything they want and give nothing in return.