I read through half the article, and I don't understand what it's trying to say. Has free software won? Or not? And what does it mean? No clue.

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schoen 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's quoting people who say that it has won because of extensive adoption. However, that adoption doesn't mean that most people are allowed even in principle to change most of the software in embedded devices they own, or even on most of the computing devices they own.

I've also found this really weird. Like, we have Linux kernels on most cloud instances, and most data center servers, and most academic and research computing systems, and probably lately on most embedded microprocessors that are big enough to run it. (And various ecosystems for computing infrastructure and software development are mainly using free software userspace and tools.) Meanwhile, almost all user-facing software that almost all people interact with almost all of the time is proprietary. Why would someone say it's "won"? Thinking really small?

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okanat 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Even Linux hasn't "won" in those areas. It has just replaced what we would call a common API layer or a communication standard. The virtualization products are still proprietary. Servers and their firmware are too. People needed a Unix-like OS that hasn't been riddled with patent issues and wasn't outrageously expensive. They needed it because they were also price-sensitive or outright cheap. They didn't want to change APIs or modularize their software. Linux was there. Startup culture happened which demanded cutting all the costs you can. Linux was free of charge. Linux wasn't the best OS for the job sometimes. But it was there and it was gratis. So it became the middleware for Unix-compatible software.

We have open standards and even open/free software for anything that companies aren't making money out of. FOSS by itself cannot make money. In places where software matters the most or, if the software hides the trade secrets the most or, if it is the main money maker, creating FOSS is economically infeasible.

For FOSS to win, we need to change the economic and legal system. Current capitalist system in many West-aligned countries is actively hostile against sharing in any kind, except the ones that profit the biggest players in their non-critical areas. In a market where the first one to market gets to buy all competitors, in a market the one that has the biggest secrecy wins and gets all the money from investors like Y-Combinator, there cannot be any truly FOSS software-only products. They need to do rug pulls to support the exponential growth. Startup culture is fundamentally anti-FOSS. It is pro-FOSS in only consuming. Even a startup releasing some middleware can be interpreted as mishandling investment.

We need to make sure our governments support FOSS infrastructure and FOSS user-facing software. They need to be equal employers and competitors to Big Tech or they need to directly support smaller competitors for decades. Otherwise, I am afraid, FOSS cannot win.

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dapperdrake 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Corporations are not really a capitalist thing. They get misconstrued as one.

	▲	wolvesechoes 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, it is never a true capitalism.

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__del__ 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

they're suggesting that "open source" has won (attention, mind share, funding, whatever) while "free software" as defined by richard stallman has not

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schoen 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I may have glossed over this detail, but I didn't think the article was saying that "open source" had actually won either (perhaps that people who preferred the term "open source" have tended to accept much narrower wins as "victory" in practice?).

	▲	protocolture 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		My takeaway was that the article was looking at common Open Source claims, and then locating the only " 100% true" example of that. Like you cant make a 100% open hardware mobile phone. Theres lots of near enough cases. But that Qualcomm chip is proprietary for the phone bit. So they exaggerate by going back to an old, open source rotary phone.

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billy99k 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It didn't succeed because he was always against making money from software. He also has pushed for governments to be forced to use FOSS.

I remember him doing some interviews in the 90s, and he would put his coat over the camera, if it wasn't using FOSS. This sort of zealot mindset will always be on the fringes of society and eventually abandoned for something more liberal (which is what we've seen in the last decade or so).