zlacker

But copyleft is bad and everyone should use BSD ...

Code is turned proprietary by huge corporate with massive development resources. No one could have predicted this.

>>rwmj+(OP)
"curse your sudden and inevitable betrayal"

>>rwmj+(OP)
Stallman was right again.

>>bogwog+fg
and yet, corporate drones will make fun of him, and they will keep missing the point...

>>bogwog+fg
The dude is solid as it gets on all this.

Yet people ignore him and then realize that was one of those too late types

>>ddingu+Ep
none of us have economic incentives to build global infrastrcture. Let me know what governments decide among the people that there's value in open source and it's software

>>cyanyd+XR
Agreed, but I doubt governments would be good stewards of open source either. They engage in illegal mass surveillance, cyber warfare, and is constantly trying to undermine encryption.

>>sorami+WS
in the abstract, governments are indistinguishable from any other collective of people.

So yeah, if open source orgs can keep going, there's no reason to think government can't do the same. It's about public goods.

>>cyanyd+XR
AOSP staying open to community patches in practice is "global infrastructure"?

>>kome+bp
Maybe they are not missing the point? Maybe the making fun is some sort of targeted hostility and opposition?

>>bogwog+fg
> Stallman was right again.

He usually is, no matter how many times people write him off.

>>cyanyd+HV
> in the abstract, governments are indistinguishable from any other collective of people.

Sure, but in reality they have a legal monopoly on the use of violence, which is a very big deal and makes them qualitatively different from any other collective of people.

>>cyanyd+XR
There was an attempt in Oregon back in the early 00's. [I was part of this attempt]

The basic argument is we all either benefit or struggle more when the work of the people, for the people, is locked up in proprietary closed tools and data formats.

When open tools and data are employed, anyone can step up to improve those tools, and the State can fund the creation and maintenance of necessary tools and when that is done the savings over longer dpans of time.

A simple example:

PDX needed water billing. A 40 million bid was tendered and a private company created a system that they own and the State Basically pays them to use. And the State pays for fixes etc too.

What happens when a 40 million dollar investment is made in people using open code to do the same thing?

Well, the State owns the tool, and the data is open meaning anyone needing access can use open tools for that purpose.

When it matures, the org that got it done can fade away, leaving a small crew to maintain

, or

Maybe that org approaches other municipalities interested in similar savings. Over time, that problem is solved and most of the nation is enjoying a great savings and developers make a fine living, etc..

Wash rinse and repeat to reduce the cost of government and the work of the people is lean, mean, effective.

Everyone enjoys the benefit of a lower cost environment too.

This had broad bipartisan support and who pushed it away?

Big companies paid lobby shut the effort down hard.

They could very easily see the popular appeal and chose to spend huge now to shit it down, paying the house speaker to block it all from having a vote.

It was going to pass easily.

I think many governments can see how to think this way.

Big companies do not want it.