The promise and freedom of open source has been exploited by the least egalitarian and most capitalist forces on the planet.

I would never have imagined things turning out this way, and yet, here we are.

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pdpi 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

FLOSS is a textbook example of economic activity that generates positive externalities. Yes, those externalities are of outsized value to corporate giants, but that’s not a bad thing unto itself.

Rather, I think this is, again, a textbook example of what governments and taxation is for — tax the people taking advantage of the externalities, to pay the people producing them.

	▲	lwhi 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, but unfortunately this never happens; and depressingly, I can't imagine it happening. The open source movement has been exploited.

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11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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ThrowawayR2 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Open Source (as opposed to Free Software) was intended to be friendly to business and early FOSS fans pushed for corporate adoption for all they were worth. It's a classic "leopards ate my face" moment that somehow took a couple of decades for the punchline to land: "'I never thought capitalists would exploit MY open source,' sobs developer who advocated for the Businesses Exploiting Open Source movement."

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lwhi 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning.

The exploited are in the wrong for not recognising they're going to be exploited?

A pretty twisted point of view, in my opinion.

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ThrowawayR2 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the "leopards ate my face" meme? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leopards-eating-peoples-faces... The parallels between the early FOSS advocates energetically seeking corporate adoption of FOSS and the meme are quite obvious.

	▲	lwhi 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't misunderstand what you're saying, but I think it's a twisted point of view.