My point of view, as a linux user from my teens to now, early thirties, I'm just some random, so don't take this too seriously.
Are we totally out of touch? Let my explain myself, the idea that if the drivers/firmware were open source it will make the bet on some hardware safer sounds like this to me, "Someone could get it working and share the code in case the company goes out of business in a few years", emphasis on the someone part, here is the thing, the people capable of doing that is pretty small, I ask myself, for the time it would take to deal with that, I could earn more money in that time that I would save 'fixing' the drivers instead of just buying a new one from another brand or the second hand market.
I know people love the romantic idea of free software, open source, etc, I just want my shit to work well, which usually is open source stuff because in most cases it has a zero monetary cost and people use it, so it gets bug fixes from their own users that are trying to make their thing work. I'm equally happy when the software is propietary but works well, case in point the nvidia drivers, it just work well for my use case, the amd drivers are open, well, I can't use their gpus without ending with a headache every few days, doesn't matter if is open source or not, it needs to work well.
Back to my point, even for the power users, how many people will actually fix the drivers/firmware of some hardware they bought? We are in a position in life that is cheaper to just buy new hardware and use that time to learn new things that will pay more in the long term and I personally find we, the linux community are out of touch most of the time with what most people care about.
Also, I find amusing when people get the pikachu face when some big corporation uses OSS and makes profit off of it, isn't that the whole point of the OSS? When I use it on my pc I'm also making profit for myself, the corporations are just doing the same but at scale, and if your goal is to make profit, who wouldn't use all the tools available? They don't have to like OSS, don't have to share the values of the OSS, don't have to 'give back', but OSS allows anyone to use it, so why wouldn't they? Do you want to be a company that is 100% OSS? That's cool, just don't make the pikachu face when another company enters the market and use what have build and shared.
> Also, I find amusing when people get the pikachu face when some big corporation uses OSS and makes profit off of it, isn't that the whole point of the OSS? When I use it on my pc I'm also making profit for myself, the corporations are just doing the same but at scale, and if your goal is to make profit, who wouldn't use all the tools available? They don't have to like OSS, don't have to share the values of the OSS, don't have to 'give back'
That is the point of Open Source, but it is not the point of Free Software. Specifically -- and I know this was addressed in the article -- this is why AGPL should be what programmers are using. It doesn't discriminate, but it does make sure that any entities that use Free Software contribute back to the commons.
This bears repeating again and again; this is why copyleft exists.
> The terms “free software” and “open source” stand for almost the same range of programs. However, they say deeply different things about those programs, based on different values. The free software movement campaigns for freedom for the users of computing; it is a movement for freedom and justice. By contrast, the open source idea values mainly practical advantage and does not campaign for principles. This is why we do not agree with open source, and do not use that term.
> this is why AGPL should be what programmers are using. It doesn't discriminate, but it does make sure that any entities that use Free Software contribute back to the commons.
A competing vendor could offer the software verbatim and still profit due to marketing and network effects (AWS has multiple products that work better together than using disparate vendors for each product), and AGPL would not help in that case.
> Back to my point, even for the power users, how many people will actually fix the drivers/firmware of some hardware they bought? We are in a position in life that is cheaper to just buy new hardware and use that time to learn new things that will pay more in the long term and I personally find we, the linux community are out of touch most of the time with what most people care about.
Assuming you meant Linux kernel specifically, I think you are out of touch how "the linux community" works. Absolute majority of participants are paid by corporations and do what their managers tell them to do. Nobody is just looking to randomly (and for free) improve things average Windows normie would care about.
Are we totally out of touch? Let my explain myself, the idea that if the drivers/firmware were open source it will make the bet on some hardware safer sounds like this to me, "Someone could get it working and share the code in case the company goes out of business in a few years", emphasis on the someone part, here is the thing, the people capable of doing that is pretty small, I ask myself, for the time it would take to deal with that, I could earn more money in that time that I would save 'fixing' the drivers instead of just buying a new one from another brand or the second hand market.
I know people love the romantic idea of free software, open source, etc, I just want my shit to work well, which usually is open source stuff because in most cases it has a zero monetary cost and people use it, so it gets bug fixes from their own users that are trying to make their thing work. I'm equally happy when the software is propietary but works well, case in point the nvidia drivers, it just work well for my use case, the amd drivers are open, well, I can't use their gpus without ending with a headache every few days, doesn't matter if is open source or not, it needs to work well.
Back to my point, even for the power users, how many people will actually fix the drivers/firmware of some hardware they bought? We are in a position in life that is cheaper to just buy new hardware and use that time to learn new things that will pay more in the long term and I personally find we, the linux community are out of touch most of the time with what most people care about.
Also, I find amusing when people get the pikachu face when some big corporation uses OSS and makes profit off of it, isn't that the whole point of the OSS? When I use it on my pc I'm also making profit for myself, the corporations are just doing the same but at scale, and if your goal is to make profit, who wouldn't use all the tools available? They don't have to like OSS, don't have to share the values of the OSS, don't have to 'give back', but OSS allows anyone to use it, so why wouldn't they? Do you want to be a company that is 100% OSS? That's cool, just don't make the pikachu face when another company enters the market and use what have build and shared.