This article consists of a few highly selective observations, glued together by make-believe.
Open source was the industry default? On what planet?
"Team, make everything open source by default, unless I tell you otherwise" --- said no CEO or other boss, ever.
We have a lot of open source; a lot of it is very advanced, and forms critical infrastructure, sure. But proprietary software has not gone away even slightly.
> Open source licenses, after all, offer the same equitable terms to all players, and limit neither competition nor usage.
Really? The sole proprietor of some GPLed program is on the same level as any other player?
And how can you write a lengthy article on these topics without even mentioning what is probably the biggest issue to free software: it is not some "bait and switch" where open source projects get relicensed. It's that much software people use is now a service. The user has no control whatsoever; they are not even getting to install a binary executable on their own machine. The licensing is irrelevant to the end user.
This entire article is about the bickering among developers: who gets what kinds of rights to which infrastructural pieces, with it being understood that everyone's shared goal is cobbing something together with those pieces in order to hold hostage the hapless users of some god forsaken SaaS application.
OK, so sure; if we put developer blinders on, open source is the default. My compiler is open source; my editor is open source; the OS is open source; the browser is open source; the database is open source. Hey open source is the default!
Meanwhile, Average Joe: social network isn't open source; webmail isn't open source; crap running in Joe's automobile isn't open source; Joe's phone isn't open source; Joe's TV streaming box isn't open source. Neither are the half dozen apps Joe relies on for this and that, or services like online banking. Almost not a single everyday use case or solution for the average user is open source. How can you talk about a default with a straight face. And this is just the consumer-facing stuff I'm talking about. For instance, let's switch to business. What enterprise runs their finances, operations and logistics on open source?
Open source was the industry default? On what planet?
"Team, make everything open source by default, unless I tell you otherwise" --- said no CEO or other boss, ever.
We have a lot of open source; a lot of it is very advanced, and forms critical infrastructure, sure. But proprietary software has not gone away even slightly.
> Open source licenses, after all, offer the same equitable terms to all players, and limit neither competition nor usage.
Really? The sole proprietor of some GPLed program is on the same level as any other player?
And how can you write a lengthy article on these topics without even mentioning what is probably the biggest issue to free software: it is not some "bait and switch" where open source projects get relicensed. It's that much software people use is now a service. The user has no control whatsoever; they are not even getting to install a binary executable on their own machine. The licensing is irrelevant to the end user.
This entire article is about the bickering among developers: who gets what kinds of rights to which infrastructural pieces, with it being understood that everyone's shared goal is cobbing something together with those pieces in order to hold hostage the hapless users of some god forsaken SaaS application.
OK, so sure; if we put developer blinders on, open source is the default. My compiler is open source; my editor is open source; the OS is open source; the browser is open source; the database is open source. Hey open source is the default!
Meanwhile, Average Joe: social network isn't open source; webmail isn't open source; crap running in Joe's automobile isn't open source; Joe's phone isn't open source; Joe's TV streaming box isn't open source. Neither are the half dozen apps Joe relies on for this and that, or services like online banking. Almost not a single everyday use case or solution for the average user is open source. How can you talk about a default with a straight face. And this is just the consumer-facing stuff I'm talking about. For instance, let's switch to business. What enterprise runs their finances, operations and logistics on open source?