[bsnnkv]

Not a great take.

Corporations who use and benefit from software should be made to pay for their use of that software, but they don't want to, which is why they'll happily spend money promoting the use of corporate-friendly and maximally exploitable open source licensing among the passionate individuals who maintain the lions share of their dependency tree.

https://lgug2z.com/articles/on-evils-in-software-licensing/

[spullara]

If you don't want to give your software away for free, don't give your software away for free. When they decide it is in their best interest to pay for it they will, i.e. support, bug fixes, changes. If you make open source software that just works they are unlikely to start writing checks nor should there be any expectation that they do that.

[zemo]

> When they decide it is in their best interest to pay for it they will, i.e. support, bug fixes, changes.

Maybe, but also maybe they just fork internally and fix the bug internally and don't publish the bugfix. And maybe it's never in their best interest to pay for it, maybe it's in their best interest to just freeload forever.

> If you make open source software that just works they are unlikely to start writing checks nor should there be any expectation that they do that.

I think it's good when we expect corporations to write checks to the people that write the open-source stuff they rely on. "A rising tide lifts all boats" is not automatically true in software, we have to choose to make it true. I think a world in which we make that choice is a better world. I'm not convinced we currently live in that world.

[spullara]

Make the license non-commercial.

[skinnymuch]

That is not how people and society function. The status quo and culture is that open source is good for society and all. You are not told about why big corporations can use all this code for free. You’re actually told you’re doing a good deed by making code open source.

Then you jump on to a place like Reddit or HN and you have people mostly supporting the status quo. Of course people are going to do open source more than they should. And then if they complain later on, you will say they chose to make it open source. Reinforcing the status quo by blaming the individual.

[spullara]

It certainly no other persons fault than the person that wrote the software and gave it away. Making them out to be the victim in all this is ridiculous.

[shimman]

We can make similar arguments for the corporations: if you want to sell your software in the US market, you need to pay for a VAT for digital services that fund national endowments giving grants to individual US developers that apply to the program.

Corporations should start paying their fair share, they've scammed society enough.

[spullara]

They aren't scamming anyone by using open source software made available to them for free.

[shimman]

The are purposely ruining the commons as any corporation does to society. Companies take advantage of open source all the time without ever truly giving back, which is why we should lobby the government to compel big tech into this.

If it helps, voter sentiment against big tech is quite high and the profit margins that big tech has means there's a lot to plunder for the public.

The only question is who do you want to do the plundering?

[spullara]

this argument that companies are plundering something given away for free without taking it away from someone else is tiring.

[bsnnkv]

> If you don't want to give your software away for free, don't give your software away for free.

I don't, and I spend a lot of my time and efforts encouraging others not to, and doing the work to prove out alternative models :)

https://lgug2z.com/articles/normalize-identifying-corporate-...

https://lgug2z.com/articles/komorebi-financial-breakdown-for...

[rmah]

Giving something away for free and then whining that people use it for free confuses me. I mean, what did you think would happen?

[bsnnkv]

> Giving something away for free and then whining that people use it for free confuses me. I mean, what did you think would happen?

Such a weird thing to reply to someone who very publicly disavows the use of open source licensing for individuals

[zephen]

Such an aggressive response to a perfectly rational response to "Corporations who use and benefit from software should be made to pay for their use of that software."

[bsnnkv]

> created: 46 days ago

Checks out