What is the origin of Blakey's abusive co-dependent relationship with open-source?



  • @blakeyrat: You never did answer my earlier questions, so here they are again:

    With regard to open source, do you think that the majority of the problems you see in FOSS are fundamental faults in developing in an open environment (e.g., that the goal of open software is itself flawed, or they are due to allowing any chump to walk in off the street and start changing things around, H2G2 style, or are due to the lack of a centralizing authority driving the projects and keeping them moving in the desired direction, or some other thing that is inherent in FOSS), or do you believe that they are primarily incidental (e.g., a matter of the sorts of developers who are drawn to the open source community, the dynamics of the community itself, or some other interpersonal issue that isn't necessarily an aspect FOSS development)?

    Do you feel that the (frequent but not quite universal) lack of monetary compensation in FOSS development is a factor?

    What about the argument that 'ego-driven development' encourages the wrong sort of contributions (either for reasons similar to your dispute with gamification, or some other reason related to recognition from ones' peers being a primary motivation)? Does the fact that gift economies, both historical and present-day, are by their nature symbiotic to a separate production economy (because only those who have the luxury of time and a means of support separate from the gift economy - e.g., feudal lords, university students living on grants and student loans, etc. - can have the opportunity to fully participate in the gift economy) have any significance to your view of FOSS? Would (and perhaps, will) the development of a post-scarcity society change this equation?

    What role does lack of continuity in FOSS projects (and the consequent CADT anti-pattern and similar issues) play in this, and it is less serious than with bespoke development, or more?

    Finally, is there any way to avoid or minimize the flaws you see in FOSS without losing its primary goals?



  • Like I said, some piece of OSS touched him in a no-no place, @Discourse-touched-me-in-a-no-no-place





  • @ScholRLEA

    What is the origin of Blakey's abusive co-dependent relationship with open-source?

    Do you seriously think I'd answer with a title like that? Fuck you.



  • He likes neat things that work.

    OSS produces ugly things that half-work.

    There's no co-dependency that I can see. He simply hates OSS and would like everyone to pay more to produce better software.

    Fair enough, no big mystery for me.



  • @blakeyrat What is the origin of Blakey's garbage attitude?



  • @cartman82 closed-source software also produces ugly things that half-work. Most of the WTFs on this site are closed-source software. Many of the WTFs are in software that people have to pay for.


  • kills Dumbledore

    @anotherusername and he complains about those too. It does seem like OSS is more likely to produce something that's barely functional and inflicted with programmer UI than a piece of software that's a pleasure to use. If the reason for that is something that's part of the open source methodology then it's fair game to bitch about



  • @Jaloopa Agreed. However, while I do agree that OSS is more likely to release bad software, I personally think that a large part of the problem is Sturgeon's Law combined with unrestricted visibility - the crappy code that is found in closed-source never sees the light of day unless it gets outed by some disgruntled employee on a site like this, and many crappy programs never get released, whereas OSS has it's fly down, so to speak. While this is only one of the reasons for bad OSS, I think that just as with fanfiction, the overall impression is worse than it really is.

    There are definitely systematic issues with most OSS development models, many of them related to the lack of focus among developers. Many kinds of projects which are valuable but 'boring', such as Gnucash, don't get the attention they deserve because no one in the community is interested in the project, for example. However, I see just as many equally serious problems in CS development models, so I'm not convinced that either one is better than the other.

    I do want to hear from @blakeyrat what his overall reasons are, and I'll admit that using that title was a dick move.

    And yes, I know who BR really is, but I also know that he uses BR to express opinions he's either mixed on, or which he knows will cause a negative backlash, as well as for general trolling and/or advocatus diaboli posts. I've even see him 'argue with himself' using BR to present counter-arguments to his own points, in a sort of Galilean Dialogue. Addressing it to BR does indeed make sense.




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