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Corporate Open Source is Dead (m.youtube.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago (8 children)

I'm surprised that other people are surprised that for-profit companies constantly try to increase their profits; such companies only contribute to FOSS when that's more profitable than the alternative. The Linux kernel, AMDGPU, Steam, etc only exist because some part of the software/hardware stack is proprietary (which becomes a more attractive product as the FOSS portion of the stack improves).

I'm definitely not justifying the "rug-pulling", but people need to stop supporting projects with no potential for long-term profitability unless those projects can survive without any support from for-profit companies. Anything else is destined to fail.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (3 children)

What part of the Linux kernel is proprietary? genuinely curious.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I believe they mean that vendors support the FOSS since it's economically advantageous for them to do so (usually bc implementing an alternative is not economically viable). The proprietary part finances their contributions to Foss, which is usually the platform that they run on top of.

There is a more detailed explanation on the economics of Foss here, for instance: https://hachyderm.io/@anthrocypher/112315622785685958, but as I understand it it's a common good that companies try to build on top of (and in some/most cases supplant with their own proprietary versions).