news
Is Free/Open Source Software Sustainable?
Quoting: Is Free/Open Source Software Sustainable? - FOSS Force —
This picture is sadly very realistic. The median open source project has one maintainer!
So why did this happen? I argue there’s been a cultural shift. Most of the “old guard” in open source, and I’m certainly one of them, come from a free software background, where there’s a big dose of idealism. But to gain acceptance, we’ve hidden that idealism: a company wouldn’t want to build its enterprise on the work of a bunch of hippies, now would it? Working for free isn’t sustainable either, so open source had to mean business. We worked hard on that, by donning suits to argue with politicians and business folks that open source would be good for business and the economy.
We were successful. Perhaps too successful, because unfortunately this has resulted in open source being equated with free… as in beer. You know, that kind of freedom with a lower case “f.” For the current generation of engineers, open source means you can import a library from GitHub into a project and it won’t cost a dime. If there’s something wrong with it, just fix it in the local copy. That’s it.