[pjmlp]

> Linux: 33 years old, runs the internet, community-funded

Only in dreams, it took off thanks to the likes of IBM that decided it was a way to save costs on their UNIX development efforts, many key projects have been founded thanks to Red-Hat Enterprise licenses, nowadays also part of IBM.

GCC, clang, GNOME, Linux kernel, systemd, CUPS, AMD/NVidia drivers, have plenty of big corp money.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux

"1998: Many major companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announce their support for Linux."

[tialaramex]

It's still the community when the community is via corporations.

Corporations are just groups of people. Pure grass roots "We collect the money, anonymously in cash shaking a bucket at our annual fundraiser" does not work at this scale. Even Zig, which I'm guessing is about as far away from "It's all just owned by an inhuman corporation" as you could ask for, does have big ticket corporate donors. So does ISRG (Let's Encrypt) or the EFF.

Venture Capital is a bad fit, that's the conjecture here. VC funding for infrastructure is a mistake because that big pay day won't happen if you did it correctly. That doesn't make VC inherently bad, or projects like Linux inherently defective, the claim was that it's just a bad match, like how an Irish Stout doesn't pair well with a subtle tomato and angel hair pasta dish.

[pjmlp]

The tone of OP was more like the "community of peace and love without money from the man".

Gathering around projects, talking over USENET, Gopher, phpBB forums, sharing code over email, Sourceforge, Savannah , living the FOSS dream, the whole mantra of when the GNU manifesto came to be.

[haolez]

Big corp money is not VC money. That's the point.

[pjmlp]

Depends on which corporation.

[halestock]

No, it depends on whether they have an ownership stake in what they’re funding or not.

[pjmlp]

All a matter of if the project dies when the money fountain runs dry, and developers have to find another way to pay bills other than a few meagre donations.

[halestock]

Ok sure, but now you’re just describing something completely different.

[pjmlp]

Nope, it is still the community getting funding out of somewhere.

[Terretta]

Not sure it's dreams to say "community-funded". Depends on terminology.

The funding assertion leverages the re-definition of “community” in “community funded” and relates to why all those big projects offer CE or Community Editions instead of calling it free or open source editions.

Enterprises are willing to take a look at free, but "community editions" are clearly for peons, not the big boys, so they license the commercial edition. It also productizes a subset of licensing rights in contrast with the commercial licensing rights.

In any case, in today's common parlance, community doesn't mean ICs and IC donations. It can, but it's been mostly co-opted by corp donations, which are still donations and not VC.

[pjmlp]

Community isn't certainly big corporations, some of which have been born out of VC money as well.