Dev.SN

What Happened to the Vision in Open Source?

posted by LaminatorX on Sunday March 23 2014, @03:47PM   
from the Bizarre-Cathedrals dept.

An anonymous coward writes:

"An interesting article about the shift in open source from idealistic to pragmatic. The author compares the relative obscurity of FOSS software such as MediaGoblin and KDE's MakePlayLive co-op to commercial software. The article then goes on to discuss the split between FOSS's goal to provide freedom to users and to provide high-quality software. Also mentioned is the split between commercial and non-commercial FOSS."

• Re:reality Re:reality (Score: 0, Troll) by Tork on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:48PM

  by Tork (3914) on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:48PM (#20016)

  Links? Mine are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki [wikipedia.org] and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomis [wikipedia.org]

  You're right, I made a boo boo here. When I read the Bomis page earlier I got the part where they said it was a predecessor to Nupedia and Wikipedia, I didn't go far enough down to read the WikiWikiWeb bit. That's my bad and will concede that point.

  Sure it had also to compete for features and web interoperability with commercial browsers. Which still proves you wrong when commercial browsers had to do exactly the same, see Adblock and crippled noscript imitations...)

  Oh, please. "They had to keep copying to keep up, but not really because commercial browsers copy to keep up."

  False, as proven. If your theory was different, you should have chosen different words.

  Nope. One of your colleagues in this thread, however, has made a little head-way on that. Not enough, but some. He understood what I said just fine.

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  Slashdolt logic: 1600 x 1200 > 1920 x 1200

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• Re:reality Re:reality (Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:18PM

  by marcello_dl (2685) on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:18PM (#20030)

  Make it "They had to keep copying to keep up, but commercial browsers copy to keep up themselves" so we have an instance of innovative FOSS that succeeds so that others need to copy its features.

  Parent

  • Re:reality Re:reality (Score: 1) by Tork on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:45PM

    by Tork (3914) on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:45PM (#20037)

    And what is the motivation to keep something like FF in perpetual development?

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    Slashdolt logic: 1600 x 1200 > 1920 x 1200

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    • Re:reality Re:reality (Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Monday March 24 2014, @07:41AM

      by marcello_dl (2685) on Monday March 24 2014, @07:41AM (#20160)

      You tell me. Go ahead and explain why commercial software is innovative, apart the need to do things differently for the sake of differentiating from the competition, whether the user likes it or not.

      Parent

      • Re:reality Re:reality (Score: 1) by Tork on Monday March 24 2014, @12:03PM

        by Tork (3914) on Monday March 24 2014, @12:03PM (#20301)

        The motivation of commercial software is obvious enough that there's no reason to dodge my question.

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        Slashdolt logic: 1600 x 1200 > 1920 x 1200

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        • Re:reality Re:reality (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @12:33PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 24 2014, @12:33PM (#20312)

          The answer was, FF is a web browser, browsing protocols are added/tweaked all the time. Let's see slackware and systemd, for a fitting example.

          Parent

          • Re:reality (Score: 1) by Tork on Monday March 24 2014, @01:09PM

            by Tork (3914) on Monday March 24 2014, @01:09PM (#20336)

            Okay, so minor bits of maintenance is all then.

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            Slashdolt logic: 1600 x 1200 > 1920 x 1200

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