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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
In an age of political animus, increasing hostility toward "others," and 24/7 media coverage that seems to focus on the negative, a recent article in Frontiers in Psychology provides a glimmer of hope, particularly for those who live in the United States.
Written by Yale University academic Gabriel Grant, "Exploring the Possibility of Peak Individualism, Humanity's Existential Crisis, and an Emerging Age of Purpose" aims to clear up two competing views of today's cultural narrative in the United States. First is the traditional view of the next generation—millennials—whom many view as individualistic, materialistic, and narcissistic. Some even refer to millennials as "Gen Me" in response to those who develop their "personal brand" with selfies and social media posts.
In stark contrast there is a view of millennials as rejecting selfish values and leading America into a "great age of purpose." Unlike previous generations, simply earning money is not enough for them—significant data shows that younger people are searching for purpose in their lives and their work. Consider the fact that the non-profit group 80,000 Hours (whose name represents the amount of time spent at work in the average lifespan) even exists. 80,000 Hours provides career advice to help young people build careers with social impact. Universities and businesses are increasingly following this path to help millennial workers achieve their goal of finding purpose in their lives.
Both sides can provide reams of anecdotal evidence that supports their view of millennials, and until recently, there have been few studies on the issue. In his article, however, Grant theorized that Google's digitization of millions of books and the Ngram Viewer, a tool that shows how phrases have appeared in books, could allow a quantified analysis of culture over the past two centuries, and he used this approach to quantitatively test the popular notion that a drive for purpose is increasing. What he found is encouraging.
Yeah, because people with a healthy ego would never possibly do volunteer work...
Source: https://opensource.com/article/17/10/rise-open-source
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:02PM (49 children)
It's all about scratching your own itch, getting other people to accept your work (and therefore keep maintaining it for you), and build up a either an implicit or an explicit portfolio of work by which to build the ego.
There's no such thing as a selfless act, anyway; if it weren't in a person's self-interest to do something then a person wouldn't do it (for instance, maybe you've decided that you want to live in a world where you have access to the source code of software, so it's in your self-interest to promote Open Source software).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:46PM (10 children)
That's another thing that grates against me every time I hear the word “selfish” get thrown around. I thought selfishness was a virtue, and the element of human psychological makeup the capitalist system harnesses to make the world go 'round.
I'm wondering perhaps if this isn't a new outpouring of frustration on the part of the aristocracy that programmer wages haven't dipped below fast food wages yet.
That means we're going to have some bad news for these new kings and queens, er, CxOs. If they want free software to go away, they're going to need to raise programmer wages. I think the key is in what you wrote here:
Why would it be in my self-interest to promote Open Source or even free software? I don't really see any piles of cash I have to gain working for a closed-source software company. How would I even get one of those jobs? I'm not getting any younger. The Masters of the Universe have spoken, and since I'm over the magical cut-off age of 30, I won't need to worry about getting one of those jobs.
Perhaps if the Masters of the Universe, the new aristocracy, would be so good as to make us an offer. I say “us” because I'm certain I'm not the only person in this position. Can the MotU offer me enough cash that I would be willing to forget what I like about free software? Probably. Maybe not enough for that Aventador I want, but perhaps a ZR-1 convertible will satisfy me (yeah, yeah, body rigidity, feh). Oh, and a new construction home with ethernet pulled along side electric. Infiltrator sheath upgrades, etc. Tons of things I would like that might help me forget why I like free software. Maybe I don't actually need to use that mouse I bought that required I hack support into my kernel under GNU/Linux.
But, the MotU are prepared to help me achieve none of those things. They're not making an offer, so we have no deal.
I see free software, and I see empowering possibilities to build the devices I've always wished to own with software that I won't have to cuss about doing some annoying thing I'm powerless to change. (In comparison, it feels so good to cuss about something annoying that I know is my own damned fault that I can go and fix.) What if I want an entertainment center for my car that has an LCARS interface? Is Paramount/CBS going to sell one of those any time soon? Huh, that's odd, thought not. I guess I just need to build it myself. Then I suppose I'll go and, just because I'm such a nice person, do that millennial social brand building thing, since apparently we're calling sharing my creation for anybody else to use, abuse, or improve upon “social brand building” now. I'll continue preferring free software for everything I do both at home and professionally.
Free software is the better offer. MotU want to change it? They can up their offer. It's a free market, and their crocodile tears over not having yet established a completely centralized top-down totalitarian economy enforced by proprietary software is, well… sad!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:01PM (9 children)
Selfishness isn't a virtue. Nor is it a vice. It is a byproduct of an integral part of the human psyche known as the ego. If yours isn't working something is severely wrong with your brain.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by t-3 on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:16PM (7 children)
I think you've been reading too much Ayn Rand. Selfishness and selflessness seem to me to be much more culturally based than inherent. Human instinct drives toward survival of the group, not the individual at the expense of the species. Greed is a psychological perversion brought about by the structure of modern (read: Post-historic) society.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @10:06PM (4 children)
Honestly, I can't stand Rand. Not her philosophies, those need some work but they're quite easy to read and understand. Her fiction is fucking painful though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday October 11 2017, @01:24AM (3 children)
Ayn Rand was a mediocre novelist. None of her writing counts as philosophy.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @01:28AM (2 children)
I love how it only takes four letters to trigger a progressive.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by unauthorized on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:00AM (1 child)
On the other hand, it only takes three letters to trigger a libertarian: T A X.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:08AM
Fair nuff. +1 to you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday October 11 2017, @01:57AM (1 child)
And you've been reading too much Sandra Harding. Greed can be observed in all other species of the animal kingdom, including those with sophisticated social behavior such as our primate cousins.
Oh really, comrade Lysenko? So, do you have any evidence for that by any chance, or are you just asserting feel-good bs because it makes you all fuzzy inside? I would love to see how you can prove certain sophisticated human behavior from a period of time for which we have virtually no evidence of the human way of life.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Wednesday October 11 2017, @02:29AM
There are pre-historic societies that survived well into the modern era - those without written language. The social structures of hunter-gatherer cultures were vastly different than pastoral societies. Never heard of Sandra Harding though, any good?
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday October 11 2017, @03:44AM
Clearly you would know, as the person with the healthiest ego here on SN.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @01:55PM (33 children)
Dunno about all that but I don't code Rehash or (when necessary) admin SN out of altruism. I do it because I enjoy the site currently and I wish for it to continue functioning and improving. My effort is repaid if I do good work.
If I perform something that looks like a selfless act, rest assured it's not. That act is almost certainly performed in furtherance of creating the type of world I wish to live in. If I'm unwilling to help someone stranded on the side of the road, I've no call to expect any help when I am. It's simply me paying a bill that isn't yet due.
True altruists do exist but they are mentally ill.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:37PM (22 children)
You just explained your own mental health problems. You thought you were doing the opposite, therefore you are unlikely to ever change, but I felt you should know.
Altruism exists, people that explain everything in the world through selfish action are the mentally disturbed who most contribute to humanity's destruction.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:53PM (1 child)
If that's what it takes to get you through the day, go on thinking so. Even if it does make you an enormous hypocrite. Show us your altruism right now. Sell your car, your house, and empty your bank account for the starving folks in Africa. Go on, what are you waiting for? Other people matter more than you do, don't they, Mr. Altruist?
My way of thinking got the human race where it is today while yours would destroy most of the progress we've made since leaving the trees in a single lifetime.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:08PM
You seem to have a completely confused view of what altruism entails.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism [wikipedia.org]
There is no special requirement to give away ALL of your belongings, most of them, or frankly, any of them- just that the individual is:
performing an action which is at a cost to themselves (e.g., pleasure and quality of life, time, probability of survival or reproduction), but benefits, either directly or indirectly, another third-party individual, without the expectation of reciprocity or compensation for that action.
Toss a few bucks in the charity box: Altruism
Read to blind children at the hospital: Altruism
Visit your own sick aunt at the nursing home: Altruism (unless there is some expectation that this will reflect on you more favorably in the will or similar)
Push a stroller out of traffic: Altruism
Corner a lost dog, read its tag and return to owner: Altruism
It does not require 100% commitment, 100% sacrifice, or anything of the sort. It does not even require 1% sacrifice. It does not mean you have to focus your efforts into Africa or similar, jut that you give up something of yours for the good of another without expecting DIRECT reciprocation. (Notably you can altruistically donate to a fund to make sure that inner school kids get reading and outdoor activities under the impression that this will help prevent inner city crime, which will reduce the likelyhood of anyone (including yourself) being mugged or stolen from in the inner city).
Basically if you do something to make the world a better place, even though you now live in that better place, it is still altruistic.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 10 2017, @04:47PM (19 children)
Altruism proper does not exist. What does exist is enlightened self-interest. And that's perfectly okay; acknowledging that even the most saintly person is still human and still receives a payoff of some sort for prosocial behavior doesn't make the behavior any less prosocial. If anything, taking the false romance out of it might make people more likely to act prosocially.
It's like love. Yes, love is reducible to chemical and mental states, but so what? It's still real and its effects don't change just because we know how they work.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:11PM (6 children)
I'd mod you up but I ran out of points.
Realistically, no human being does anything but for selfish reasons. Only the willfully deluded would even make that claim. "I want" or "I don't want" lie behind every choice we make, even the ones that appear altruistic on the surface. Social organisms we may be but hive insects we are not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by melikamp on Tuesday October 10 2017, @07:07PM (5 children)
You are the ones willfully deluded, folks. You just ostensibly redefined the word "selfish" to mean "acted out by an individual". No one is paying attention, though, and people are still doing some things because it benefits them, and other things even though it harms them. Trying to explain selfless acts as "enlightened self-interest" is a rather simple fallacy, whereas you presume that in every single case, the apparent harm to the actor does not matter because the actor is aware of some kind of greater good, and when one is aiming towards that greater good, it is a "selfish" action. Complete circle.
Two things are wrong with this picture: first, you are using words "selfish action" and "individual action" as synonyms, even though they are not. They are not synonymous in daily use, not synonymous in psychology, not synonymous in literature... But you insist on them being grammatically equivalent, even though the only time they are is when you are lost in your own epistemological jungle.
Second, you presume that every self-hurting individual action is precipitated by an understanding of some higher good, which is just unfounded and false. Many things are done with much less thinking. And when Alice tells you, "I gave Charlie $10 so that he can buy food", you reply something along the lines of "what you really believe is that Charlie having food is a good which trumps the good of you having $10, and you believe in maximizing goodness, so you selfishly maximize the goodness by giving him $10". At that point Alice says: "Wait, you can read my thoughts?" And you say: "Oh, wait, I just made that whole thing up, haha :)"
The easiest way to see why what you are saying is "language that went on vacation", consider a very simple-minded person, Bob, who is actually a simple robot. Bob got a camera and a mop, and is programmed to look around, identify dirt on people furniture, and mop it. Bob has no concept of self, can't see self, can't mop self. Nothing Bob does is selfish. Everything it does can be interpreted as altruistic towards humans. What you are saying, folks, is that ALL humans are less flexible than Bob, as their brains are unable to carry out a similar computation. You are apparently denying that the human brain has the ability to make an altruistic computation to determine the course of action. This is ridiculous. The human brain is an extremely powerful Bayesian predictor, and it comes up with predictions and decisions in all kinds of ways. A lot of times it gives much weight to the outcomes pertinent to self-interest, but other times it disregards these outcomes. No amount of sophistry will allow you to convince normal people that they are more deterministic than Bob.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @08:35PM (4 children)
Would you like it explained to you in small words so you can understand it? No mental gymnastics required, I promise, just a willingness to stop thinking you're special and a minute or so worth of reading.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:25PM (3 children)
Really? Your insulting reply is devoid of content, but I'm not surprised since reality disagrees with your assessment. Your belief in pure selfishness is simply a scientific replacement for the great sky fairy. It explains the world in a simple mechanistic fashion that lets you off the hook for anything you don't like. You are thus free to be a selfish prick and not feel bad about it, just like many religious people are free to be pieces of crap because they are believers who will be saved.
Scientific hokum, the new opiate of the masses.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:40PM (2 children)
That wasn't a rejoinder, my comprehension-impaired friend. It was an offer to enlighten but only if he was actually going to bother reading it. You I won't bother explaining it to as you couldn't even understand that much.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:34PM (1 child)
The quality of your shit posts really needs some work.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 12 2017, @01:26AM
These ain't shit posts, grasshopper. This is just me speaking my mind. It's really not hard to tell the difference unless you're so far out in left field that you can't even see the center anymore.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:13PM (11 children)
Incorrect. I'm not surprised to see uzzy say such shit, but azuma have you read too much Dawkins? Survival of the fittest is the worst bastardization of natural selection I have ever seen.
As for enlightened self interest that falls to pieces so easily. People who sacrifice / risk their lives to save others are not enlightened on a cosmic scale, they are being altruistic. Animals are known to be altruistic as well, even to other species. There is no possible connection to selfishness except for the insane convolutions the social darwinists go through to maintain their belief system.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:25PM (3 children)
Fraid not. There was no altruism when I enlisted in the Army. I value my liberty, I value my family, I value my friends, town, state, and nation. Their unhappiness from lack of liberty or death would sadden me more than I could bear, thus it makes perfect sense for me to put my own life on the line for purely selfish reasons.
Your problem is not that you're wrong. It's that you cannot recognize your own selfishness when you see it. Take grief, for example. Grief is an overwhelmingly selfish emotion. Grief is not about what was lost at all, it's about you caring because you miss it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @04:50PM (2 children)
Just because YOU operate on a purely selfish mode of being does not make it inherent to other people. If you can't comprehend the concept of altruism then I don't know what else to say.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:12PM (1 child)
You're not understanding, slappy. I'm saying everyone operates in purely selfish mode; some just choose to deny it. I'll be happy to prove it if you like as well.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:29PM
Hahahahaha, oh don't worry, I fully understand where you are coming from and I'm calling you a narrow minded fool. You can't prove it, simply not possible, and there are plenty of real occurrences where you would have to invent all sorts of weird convoluted explanations to try and make the altruistic acts appear selfishly motivated.
I've read all your replies in the thread, they are lacking any sort of proof and your bluff to provide such shows the limits of your capability.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday October 10 2017, @06:07PM (6 children)
I've read very little Dawkins, but enough to know he and his kind (Sam Harris, Jerry Coyne, etc) ought to shut up about social issues and focus on science. And nowhere did I ever say anything about survival of the fittest...furthermore, "fittest" in the case of a social, intelligent animal (that's us) most definitely includes empathy, reciprocity, morals, laws, in short, the whole of "social technology" that allows cooperation and mastery of the environment.
You are accusing me of a strawman of evolution; "social Darwinism" is neither, and the fact that you would even think to use the term shows how completely out of your depth you are in this discussion.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:19PM (5 children)
You don't like my use of social darwinism but you have no problem with using enlightened self-interest? Don't make me laugh miss high and mighty.
I get it, you're some version of a materialist. I fundamentally disagree and find it ridiculous when people try and turn altruism into some form of selfishness. The whole concept falls to pieces when you see one species helping another.
One clarification, I asked a question about Dawkins cause he is the primary motivator behind many modern materialists. Then I added commentary with "Survival of the fittest is the worst bastardization of natural selection I have ever seen." It was not an accusation, it was a comment about applying the concepts of natural selection to non-genetic traits of humanity.
You are 100% correct that a lot of human behavior which appears altruistic actually has some self interest behind it, and much of morality and ethics really is about enlightened self interest. I simply can not abide when people try and use that insight to destroy the very meaning of altruism since there are so many observable instances where there is zero possibility of self interest coming into play. The general response from materialists is that such acts are aberrations, or there is a perceived benefit, or instinct causing the actions out of a confused enlightened self interest.
If you simply do not believe that altruism exists then we can agree to disagree.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:56PM (4 children)
You really need to check some of those assumptions. I'm not an atheist, and I also don't think there's any meaningful separation between the ideas of hard materialism and hard idealism (the idea that everything is thought). My suspicion is that these are two forms of the same "God-stuff."
The materialists are correct though (if for the wrong reasons) that there is a perceived benefit to even the most altruistic-seeming actions. Even if we can't see it. I'd been informally called "x-altruist" at some point due to my answers to questions like "would you donate a kidney, for free, to save a complete stranger?" To which my answer is yes. There doesn't, on the surface of it, *seem* to be a payoff for something like that. It's dangerous, I gain nothing, and I'd have reduced physical resiliency for it. But I'm sure somewhere in there is some kind of payoff.
You don't seem to understand what enlightened self-interest means. I get it, if you're a certain type of religious it has the same horror as the idea of moral relativism...which is not the same thing, by the way, as moral subjectivism and which many religious types confuse it with. Sorry, but this is simple emotionalism; you'll be less afraid when you have the facts.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:37PM
Speaking of making assumptions, but ok whatever its fine when you do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:44PM (2 children)
At least you have more substance than TMB, and it sounds like you believe everything is all connected and thus even if it has no bearing on the personal motivations of the actor there is still some cosmic self-interest at play. I could get on board with that, but its so nebulous as to not have much bearing on the intentions of individuals. More like "there is a reason for everything" type of philosophical argument.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:32PM (1 child)
Why do you think God cares what we do? All personal theistic God ideas are incoherent; their attributes clash with one another and with observable reality. Only the "ground of all being" category is even close to internally consistent, and that is in permanent conflict with the idea of agency. This, incidentally, is the underlying problem with Thomism and similar schools of Christian (and Muslim!) thought about the nature of God...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @11:26PM
Back to assumptions, I guess I could have told you earlier that never in my life have I ascribed to any religion. Spiritual atheist would be the closest label for me. I don't believe in altruism because it is tied to the concept of god, I believe in it through personal observation and the quite common examples of non-human creatures helping out an individual from another species. Sometimes there is an instinctual / selfish motivation such as rearing a baby from another species, but quite common are acts that make no sense. If you believe in free will then altruism is a valid concept with no addendum necessary unless you're analyzing a specific scenario for more complicated motivations.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday October 10 2017, @04:40PM (7 children)
A characteristically right-wing take on things, TMB. If you're not expecting anyone to 'keep score' though, it's altruism of a sort, no?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:15PM (6 children)
Not right-wing at all. Simply a realistic understanding of human beings as contrasted with ants or bees.
No, it just looks that way in poor light. "I want" a world in which people pull over to help someone with car trouble, so I do what I can to help create one. Anything that starts with a statement of personal desire is not altruistic by definition.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @05:31PM (5 children)
I guess whatever works, if materialist enlightened self interest is what it takes for you to be a decent person then so be it :D
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 11 2017, @07:46PM (4 children)
Missed a bit there. I'm not a materialist. Capital and material goods are way down my list of earthly desires. I simply refuse to be stolen from. I'll give you the shirt off my back if I think you need it but I'll shoot you in the face for trying to take it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 11 2017, @08:40PM (1 child)
Lol, well since you don't know enough about the topic to discuss it I guess I can call this case closed; another ignoramus thinking he alone has figured out the universe.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 12 2017, @01:33AM
Darlin, anyone who hasn't figured out the universe by thirty needs their biomass recycled. Being wrong is fine but being indecisive is far worse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday October 11 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)
Materialism in this case is the philosophical position that all first-order phenomena have ontological basis in inert matter. Its opposite is Idealism, which posits that all first-order phenomena are mental. The problem with Idealism is that so far no one has been able to describe, or show how would work, a purely non-material mind. We have not found any form of thought which is separated from some material substrate entirely yet.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 12 2017, @01:30AM
Ahh, roger. Irrelevant to what we were talking about but I hear what you're saying.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday October 10 2017, @09:14PM (1 child)
You selfish bastart, Th' Mightnotly Brigaand! Keeping all this cognitive dissonance to yourself! I really doubt you are being paid enough for the coding you do for us, not to mention not being paid for the trolling! Truly, you are a model humanitarian, almost a liberal progressive!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 10 2017, @10:08PM
I know, right? I'm gonna demand a 50% raise next time I talk to Deucalion/juggs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 10 2017, @02:42PM (3 children)
Sometimes it's about scratching your own itch. But sometimes it's because you work for some open source vendor and your boss wants a certain feature in the daily build by Friday. On the big-name projects, it's more often the latter than the former.
That's one reason I prefer RMS's vision of "free software" over ESR's vision of "open source": Sure, it's better to have the source than not, and both of them give you the source, but the "open source" model tends to create a situation in which the work is being done to satisfy a vendor rather than being done to satisfy developers and users. The vendor at best just gets in the way, and at worst makes things much much worse (I'm looking at you, Red Hat and systemd).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:05PM (2 children)
The vendor at best just gets in the way, and at worst makes things much much worse (I'm looking at you, Red Hat and systemd).
Terrible example. systemd solves real problems, though perhaps it doesn't do the greatest job of it, but most important is that it isn't forced on you. Now why it's been adopted wholesale by almost every distro is debatable, and may make you feel like it's being forced on you, but it's not: there are distros like Slackware still out there which don't use systemd. (Gentoo also, I think.) If it's that important to you, you can switch to one of those. I suspect so many distros adopted it because there just aren't many good competitors that are as full-featured: upstart and OpenRC just don't do the same stuff, and also possibly laziness (not wanting to reinvent the wheel). It's too bad we don't see this same drive to standardize on a single solution with other things like DEs.
A better example is some particular open-source products I've seen, like Magento (e-commerce suite) where they give you the code, but it's almost obfuscated: no comments or documentation at all whatsoever. Good luck making any sense of it, and extending it to do what you need. Or, of course, instances where they'll give you the source code to certain FOSS components on a system, but not to the proprietary bits that run on top, and no access to the build system at all or a way to reprogram your device with a new build. This is basically "TiVoization".
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 10 2017, @05:38PM (1 child)
What real problems does it solve that was not addressed better by other systems that existed prior to its creation? About the only thing I can think of is the problem of me being able to easily go through my logfiles using normal text tools. And while you're right that I can and do avoid it on my own systems, I can't on boxes that are run by my clients and for whom "Red Hat" and "Ubuntu" are brand names that give them comfort or at least pass CYA muster.
And if we're talking about other cases where the vendor technically complies with the FOSS licenses but certainly doesn't follow the spirit of it, the elephants in the room are Android and OS X.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday October 10 2017, @06:57PM
And while you're right that I can and do avoid it on my own systems, I can't on boxes that are run by my clients and for whom "Red Hat" and "Ubuntu" are brand names that give them comfort or at least pass CYA muster.
I don't see the problem here. What if your clients instead decided that only the brand names "Microsoft" and "Apple" gave them comfort, as so many companies do? You should be glad your clients aren't at least that bad. I'd like my job better if they had a servant bringing me an Earl Grey tea in the morning, prepared exactly the way I like it, but I'm not going to complain too hard that it doesn't have that perk. I'd also like my own reserved covered parking spot, but again, I don't realistically expect these perks from jobs these days.
And if we're talking about other cases where the vendor technically complies with the FOSS licenses but certainly doesn't follow the spirit of it, the elephants in the room are Android and OS X.
Elephants in the room? Those are well-known examples (particularly in the case of Android) of Tivoization. Locked bootloaders are completely against the spirit of FOSS, no question about it.