He probably writes plenty of code for free. Linux was written for free.
That's different, if you know ahead of time. I mean if the user decides he should write free code, he should.
And it used to be that everybody did, and that worked pretty well.
The guy in the OP comes out of that ethos - from before the commons got fenced up real good. You can make fun of him for being behind the times, but the timeline where his vision worked out is way better than our hellscape, in which knowledge is claimed as property and innovation is dominated by a handful of massive corporations.
5: Right. The quote sounds very late 90s. I was about to ask if the Spice Girls are still his favorite band.
There's no honest way to be that stupid about that happened since the late 90s.
It's one thing when a student does it to take a class, but when people who can expense it start doing that, it's just another case of the rich dodging paying their share.
How much of Linux actually was built for free? ISTR IBM spent a ton of money on it.
Its true that some proportion of developer time over the years has been on salary, but it certainly didn't start out with that kind of support, and royalties collected for it have always been $0.
And, sorry, we should be speaking of GNU/Linux, obviously....
I've even heard that some of you people comment on Unfogged for free.
I work for a company that produces a lot of open source software. Most of what I do eventually gets open sourced, or it's not appropriate to be open sourced,* and I'm strongly committed to doing work that ends up in the wider community and gets reused by others.
I still get infuriated by freetards, though.
* because it's a one-off thing that's not of much interest to anyone, or because there's no reason to do anything other than a quick hack.
Ask him for his medical records and sexts.
Institutional freeloaders are the worst, too.
It's one thing to make use of open source software, and maybe contribute back, through finding bugs, or contributing code, or even just informing the roadmap or direction of the thing. It's also great when people with money want to pay someone to add a feature, or enhance the product. That's basically our business model or some of what we do. You pay, we do it, we make it available to everyone.
But, it's not uncommon for me to have conversations with person X at institution Y (with gazillion dollar endowment and grant funding specifically for these kinds of projects running into tens or hundreds of millions), where I say, "Sure, we can add feature P, it'll take a couple of weeks development time." And for them to explicitly say, "Yeah, I'll just wait until some other sucker pays."
"No, dude, you HAVE the money. The only reason you are not paying, is you are a dick."
I'm sort of an open-source hero because I unlocked the bathroom for the FedEx guy just now.
ttaM is right, of course.
There's a holier-than-thou freeloader mentality here that is reminiscent of people who don't tip because they think service workers should be well paid.
I still get infuriated by freetards, though.
The correct term nowadays is "software developmentally disabled."
I'm also in a really bad mood because I just got screwed on a tender.* I wouldn't even mind that much, but their explanation for why we didn't get it was basically lies.
"You scored lower than other vendor on your knowledge of X."
"We literally wrote the specifications for X!"**
"Your product can't provide feature A."
"We provided an explicit explanation of how it does A, and a link to an in production site where you can see it A-ing."
"You have no expertise in domain P."
"You [institution] have just invited me to speak at a conference at your institution, as an acknowledged expert in domain P."***
etc
It's fine being lied to - well, it's not, but this is the business, and you have to accept it -- but make the fucking effort to not rub it in our face.
* there was clearly already a pre-selected supplier, and we were asked to submit to make up the numbers so they could get around procurement regulations.
** actually true.
*** also actually true.
19: I'm surprised they didn't have their script better prepared. When I want to buy a major instrument for the lab, the company reps are happy to describe which combination of features their instrument has that no one else does, and to suggest experiments that absolutely require those specific features. I think it's a major part of their job.
17: I went to a restaurant in San Francisco which did that. It was really nice. Also, the waitstaff were all quite personable and helpful but slightly less obsequious.
The very fancy pizza place here is tipless. It's nice.
Tips are terrible. This is not a reason not to tip in any circumstance where it's expected and people are relying on it, but any system where tips aren't expected and people aren't relying on it is better.
People should be paid a predictable amount based on what their work is worth, rather than having to rely on the benevolence and goodwill of each individual customer they interact with. And they really shouldn't get paid differentially based on how attractive and charming they are, and tipping makes that happen. Opposition to tipping used to be a standard left-wing shibboleth, and I wish it would come back.
I went to a tipless bar once. Or so I thought. Turns out there was a typo in their sign.
9: I was at IBM during the relevant years, and heavily involved in the early decisions. IBM spent money on the Z (mainframe) and PowerPC ports of the kernel, making sure GCC ran well there, but not really on anything else. Yes, they subsidized some Linux core folks, but really, that was a drop in the bucket compared to the actual cost of building Linux. Much fairer to say that the GNU project built Linux, since so much of userland came from GNU. And before that, we can look to Berkeley and BSD. Companies spent money to ensure that Linux ran well on their hardware, but that was about it.
there was clearly already a pre-selected supplier, and we were asked to submit to make up the numbers so they could get around procurement regulations.
This is SOP, and I've been involved in it myself, often against my better judgement. But I was never such a fool as to be so specific in my feedback that it was demonstrably lies.
People should be paid a predictable amount based on what their work is worth, rather than having to rely on the benevolence and goodwill of each individual customer they interact with.
Everything you say is true, but as you will recall fro Econ. 101, they actually get paid at the level where supply intersects with demand for their skills as waitstaff. That's capitalism. I suspect it's as low as it is partly because so many of the other jobs that used to be open to people with no particular skill set have been automated. Over here, wait staff get minimum wage, and you still have to tip, just not so much.
The OP is interesting. The guy's argument is, of course, complete bollocks. But there -is- an argument that isn't such bollocks, though it still doesn't cover the cited case. First, the cited case involves using a Slack channel as a source of copyright-infringing downloads, and that's clearly illegal. So is uploading an infringing work. It's plainly illegal. The guy is endangering his employer: anywhere I've worked, that'd be a firing offense. But OTOH, the act of downloading an infringing work is so close to legal, that it might as well be. And just as we've all learned that "morality" has nothing to do with the way business operates, it seems difficult to argue that individuals should conduct their business dealings with large corporations[1] to that higher standard of "morality" rather than "what we can do safely without getting caught".
I mean, in a world of IBG/YBG, Mike Milken getting away with gazillions even after getting caught, etc, etc, etc, ..... a lifelong mobster being elected president, it's really difficult to argue that the relevant standard of behaviour in the larger economy is one of "morality", or even "strict adherence to the spirit of the law".
[1] sure, in fact, when we download an infringing work, we're taking money from individual authors. How is that different from owning stock in almost any large corporation [and esp. in any finance company]? They're all leeches at this point.
I'm aware of the nihilism inherent in this attitude. I'd note that that is precisely the attitude of all of corporate America. To adopt any other attitude in response, seems foolish.
One year Microsoft was a leading contributor to the Linux kernel, essentially to get Linux to run on Azure.
I still get infuriated by freetards, though.
Let's ix-nay this insult suffix, please.
Its possible this guy is just cheap but its also possible that he is a true wizard of the old religion. Maybe he's still fighting a hopeless guerilla war against the O'Reilly Industrial Complex because he understands, as all Good Developers once did, that Richard Stallman was right all along.
I'm aware of the nihilism inherent in this attitude. I'd note that that is precisely the attitude of all of corporate America. To adopt any other attitude in response, seems foolish.
"From now on I'm thinking only of me."
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: "But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way?"
"Then," said Yossarian, "I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"
re: 26
I've been a beneficiary of it, too.
However, in this case, I think the annoyance is the amount of work required for the tender (it was a lot, with a lot of late nights for me and my boss), and the fact that it was presented in a way that made it look winnable.* Plus the reasons given for not getting it, were such transparent bullshit, and it was clear that the decision had been made a long time ago (the person giving us the brush off wasn't smart enough to avoid letting some things slip). I even was able to work out who the winning person was (although they didn't tell us).
But, I have a relationship (professional and friendship) with some of the people involved, and if they wanted a sacrificial supplier, they should have gone to someone else, or presented the tender in a way that would have let us know. I submitted another tender last week, where I was fairly sure we wouldn't get it. Did it anyway, but ... put less work into it than I do for the ones I'm pretty sure I have a solid chance at getting.
* I don't want to go too much into detail here, but there were good reasons to assume this. I trained some of the people involved in the tendering process, and (ironically) hired the person who did get this tender to work for me in the past.
However, in this case, I think the annoyance is the amount of work required for the tender (it was a lot, with a lot of late nights for me and my boss), and the fact that it was presented in a way that made it look winnable.
This drives me crazy. Organizations need to clearly mark which tenders are really open and which are reserved for whichever vendor has already put in all the grunt work and schmoozing to get the tender that far along to begin with.
presented the tender in a way that would have let us know
That's why enthusiastic consent is a helpful concept.
And just as we've all learned that "morality" has nothing to do with the way business operates, it seems difficult to argue that individuals should conduct their business dealings with large corporations[1] to that higher standard of "morality" rather than "what we can do safely without getting caught".
The argument that everyone else is pissing in the swimming pool does not appeal to me. It leads inexorably to a post-Soviet Russian society where contracts are enforceable only by the immediate credible threat of violence and trust is for suckers. Although morality is obviously in part dictated by the standards of the surrounding society some of it also has to come from within. And in a society where almost all dealings are intermediated by large corporations, you don't get a free pass by saying you're only cheating the corporation. Amazogooglebook will always find some way to screw the money back from real people.
Besides not paying authors for their work is a crime more heinous than almost any other.
Opposition to tipping used to be a standard left-wing shibboleth, and I wish it would come back.
Come back? My very strong impression was that opposition to tipping is still a standard left-wing shibboleth (for all the reasons you mention). I've never heard anything that would suggest otherwise. Every leftist whose opinion on the issue I've ever heard has disliked the system of tipping (at least as it is currently common in the US).
It leads inexorably to a post-Soviet Russian society where contracts are enforceable only by the immediate credible threat of violence and trust is for suckers
This is also a pretty good description of pre-post-Soviet Russian society. "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us", for example.
the pair were walking along Euston Road between 3pm and 4pm when they were approached by the gang of around 10 teenagers outside Pound Fever.
One of the gang said "Give me your owl," and adopted a boxing pose. With an outstretched arm he then sprayed both boys with the silly string while shouting abuse.
YOU CAN HAVE MY OWL WHEN YOU PRY IT OFF MY COLD DEAD GLOVE
27: do they get regular minimum wage? In the US in many states, there is a different tipped-worker wage of around $3/hr. Which means that even if the service were absolutely horrendous, I would tip at least 10%. 20% is pretty standard now, though 15% used to be adequate.
38. Fair and important point. But things got even worse in the immediate aftermath of the collapse. The radius of enforceable trust did shrink to the approximate reach of a handgun for a while.
[I've been rereading "Moscow Stations" -- what an utterly brilliant book it is]
27- I don't know how to quantify it but there is obviously a huge amount of path dependence in the relative pay structures of different areas of employment. Surely someone has studied this but it would be quite interesting to speculate on the outcome if everyone's salaries were reset with complete ignorance of what people are already paid for that job. I think teachers would benefit the most.
re: 40.1
Yes. Which is about 10.50 USD for over 25s, and somewhat less for younger workers.
as you will recall fro Econ. 101, they actually get paid at the level where supply intersects with demand for their skills as waitstaff. That's capitalism.
Hence the Hot Waitress economic indicator. Attractive people working as waiters are an indicator of a slack employment market; if the economy was better, they would be able to find higher-paid jobs - attractive people are more likely to be employed, and also tend to earn more - and the waiting jobs will instead be filled by the plain. If the attractive are reduced to waiting jobs, that's a bad sign. (Other indicators that have been suggested are that lipstick sales go up, men's underwear sales go down, and recruitment advertisements for the armed forces become scarier.)
Wages and employment have nothing to do with nonexistent supply and demand curves for labor, even in an ideal world.
The spambots are getting better by the day!
A record number of auto loans going in to default is also not a good sign.
When a car performs well people should be tipping the dealer.
That's blackjack dealers. Anyway, very high default rates when unemployment is low are probably a very bad sign.
"19: I'm surprised they didn't have their script better prepared. When I want to buy a major instrument for the lab, the company reps are happy to describe which combination of features their instrument has that no one else does, and to suggest experiments that absolutely require those specific features. I think it's a major part of their job.
"
It is possibly that Ttam's competitor did just this thing, but slipped in a few lies while doing so. I have liked NBeaudrot's recent description of Trump as a used-car salesman.
attractive people are more likely to be employed, and also tend to earn more
I would have made a lot more money in my career if this were true.
Besides not paying authors for their work is a crime more heinous than almost any other.
If libraries had glass walls, everybody would be illiterate.
People don't learn to read in libraries.
People don't learn to read in libraries.
Some do. The monsters.
Seriously what does 53 mean? Is the idea that everyone in the library would get distracted by looking through the glass walls at what was going on outside, and so they would forget how to read? Or is the idea that if you could see what was inside a library from outside, you wouldn't want to go in?
California's minimum wage has no exception for tipped employees, so everyone knows. (When minimum wage went up, some restaurants moved to tipless systems. I haven't heard of new ones recently, but I may not have been in a position to.)
If the walls were glass all the books would be destroyed by sunlight. Monster.
Libraries don't spend money to buy things people have written. That would be silly!
39: The only way to stop a bad guy with silly string is a good guy with silly string.
Sadly, insurance told the city council there would be excessive stone-flinging risk from all the insecure folks out there.
59: The covers and spines might fade, but I don't think the books would be destroyed. Maybe over geologic time.......
60: But librarians are very silly people!
Thanks for 57, ajay! I was puzzled too, but I thought it was just my stupid powers preventing me from getting the obvious (to everyone else) joke.
59: note for librarians: use concave, not convex, glass walls.
You all have seriously made this conversation more fun and funny by nitpicking my wisecrack. Thank you for that.
Books should be stored in cans, not glass, to keep them from getting skunked. That being said, a good bottled indie chapbook on a long summer evening can be lovely.
Re-upping a previous recommendation that folks should read We, a dystopian early-1920s Soviet novel.
We is set in the future. D-503, a spacecraft engineer, lives in the One State, an urban nation constructed almost entirely of glass. (WikipediaWikipedia). Directly influenced Orwell among others.
If libraries had glass walls beggars would have bicycles.
I enjoyed Ogged channeling Jonathan Edwards in the OP.
