[notarobot123]

We haven't talked enough about the second-order effects of open source on the economics of programming as a profession. I'm glad to see that starting to change[1].

Open source makes it harder to make a living as a programmer (at least an author of libraries, tools and infrastructure). Keeping server utilities closed source while still allowing clients to have full access to the source for client tools and self-hosting utilities seems like a pragmatic approach to the user-centric principles of open source.

This way, companies can continue to maintain some competitive advantage with their own investment into closed source code while still enabling users to own, control and contribute to software that runs on their machine.

The crucial element here is maintaining low switching costs by allowing a marketplace for _real_ competition on quality and cost of compatible services (as well as allowing self-hosting). This is the kind of software freedom that actually benefits users.

[1] - Evan Czaplicki's talk at Strange Loop this year made some similar points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ3w_jec1v8

[pjmlp]

For a short time I was all about being a FOSS zealot using M$ on email signatures and such, because I had a confortable university student life where most bills were paid by someone else, then I realised what it means to have to pay bills for ourselves.

People are realising that PD and Shareware make more sense when one wants to make a living from software, the alternative being putting everything behind SaaS walls.

Not every use case can be done selling hardware to go alongside the software, consulting, conference talks, selling books (which are often pirated by those that should donate to FOSS)